Ferros

A-bloogy-woogy-woo!

The party descended into the mines once more, back to the obvious trap in search of some other clue to Georg’s employer and corrupter. As they neared the cave they’d faced him in before, they happened upon a strange mist emanating from the cave. Arryn and Reade waded into it with no problem, but the hint of corruption and Lorilla’s height made it a problem for her, giving her the most evil of asthma! She coughed a bit, but trudged on.

In the center of the cave lay two fountains of mist. As Reade and Lorilla rounded the corner, they rose to reveal zombies. As they prepared to attack, their heads and limbs flopped away to reveal a monstrous aberration underneath, bearing sharp claws in their wrists and a wide toothy mouth in the neck. Rows of eyespots and tendrils ran down their side and the unsettling noise of insectoid legs and their moist, scaly hide gave them a most unsettling appearance. Nonetheless, Reade was undaunted and responded with fire, which was surprisingly effective. The first one, in the body of Georg, attacked Lorilla, but fell soon to her and Reade’s attacks. The second, in the body of Jim, was more resistant, getting past her to attack Arryn. His past battles had hardened him, though, and he didn’t flee. A bolt of lightning struck through the creature as an arrow struck into Arryn from behind!

Reade turned to face the hidden assailant who appeared to be a ranger of some sort. With divided attention, though, he was unable to deal with the ranger and together it and the Jim-body-snatcher nearly brought Arryn down. The bard was able to stab a dagger into the Jim-beast and heated it, inflicting massive fire damage. Lorilla tried to respond with a powerful burst of necromantic energy, but the creature was completely unaffected. With a snarl, the ranger flung a bolt of corruption at Arryn, bringing him down, as he named the bard a traitor. Seeing his friend fall and nearly die, again, Reade whipped out his wand of magic missiles and smote the ranger. Outnumbered, and with his creatures killed by Lorilla, the ranger fled with one final pathetic arrow.

Victorious, they inspected the bodies and discovered that each held a black trillium in perfect health. They also found a useless key. Reade and Arryn determined that it could only have been grown in town. They returned to the surface and, the next day, used El Birbo Diablo to confirm that such flowers grew in Lady Kaishelm’s garden. With this new piece of evidence, they went to meet with Baron Kabuto. They explained their investigation into Father Agilmar’s death, and their suspicion of Monika’s involvement. Together they decided that there wasn’t quite enough evidence to charge her with the murder, but enough to ask a court for a search warrant.

We're almost done.

In the tavern, Arryn badly asked the bartender about the sigil. He told them it was the symbol of Lady Monika Kaishelm, so they asked around. A middle-class white-collar couple in the bar told Arryn that Lady Kaishelm was tough to deal with, shrewd at business and generally being cold. Wanting a second opinion, they went to a shady bar serving miners and found a really drunk guy to talk to. Somehow Arryn’s shiny outfit made the drunk guy really impressed and, despite Arryn’s fumbling, he told them all about how Lady Kaishelm was devious and underhanded and totally involved in a murder that he knew nothing about. Confident in their conclusion, the party resolved to go confront her about it the next day during their appointment.

With their nerves up, they marched in (past the gates with the symbol) and had tea with the butler and maid. Then Lady Kaishelm entered: tall, auburn hair held up with a white bow, and glasses. They asked her very politely about the book and she said she didn’t have it. They asked about the murder and while she said she respected Father Agilmar for his views on books, she wasn’t devout and hadn’t been particularly close, nor did she know anything about his murder. Feeling shy about confronting her with the receipt and sigil, they left and kicked the dirt a bit.

First they went to confirm the validity of the receipt by talking to Vulfgang, the novice at the temple library. He looked up sales records and confirmed the receipt, reiterating he didn’t know the inventory as well as Father Agilmar had. They asked if either the Baron or Monika had been in lately and he said that both had come in within the past month as semi-regulars. The Baron was more devout, but Monika had a more sincere love of books. He also reminded them that the Baron and Monika were at each other’s throat for political power in the town, so they figured that Monika’s sigil in the satchel wasn’t enough to convict her as the Baron could’ve planted it to frame her. They needed a mentor, someone with better advice, so they went to see Captain Gisbert of the guard.

He sat and listened to their explanation, intrigued at the account of Georg and his subsequent death. He agreed that the sigil was not enough to convict on its own, but further investigation of Georg might yield a btter link. So the party returned to Georg’s apartment to look through his things for a better link to either the Baron or Monika. They didn’t find much of interest until they checked his bedroom. There, Lorilla found (and opened) a small locked, black-lacquered box. Inside, resting within velvet lining, was a crystal vial bound and capped with silver. And inside the vial was a volatile black liquid that rippled on its own. It was supremely corrupted, though no one recognized it at first. Arryn hypothesized it might be a concentrated form of corruption, sot hey took it back to the temple.

After sitting through services, they asked to speak to a head priest and were directed to Father Stefan. He took them to a confessional and listened to their story and looked at the vial. Seeing it, he made signs of protection and said prayers to Olim and to Manny. This intense reaction surprised the party. He told them it was liquid corruption, the stuff used to desecrate the temple and enslave people during the days of the Wyrd. Father Stefan implored them to keep it safe, refusing to keep it in the temple. With nowhere good to put it, they stuck it in Reade’s bag of holding.

At a loss for clues, they sat in the tavern, where Arryn received an odd note from the waitress, “I found you.” He asked her and she said it’d been from a stranger, someone who looked as if he’d been in the woods. This wasn’t familiar to Arryn but he told the party he’d gotten other weird notes like this before. It didn’t seem to have any clue to their current predicament, but they decided to keep it in mind for later. First, they took a look at their current evidence. Their investigation of Georg hadn’t produced much, but it occurred to them that maybe a closer look at the ambush site, and his body, might yield some results. So off they went, back into the mines to see what remained.

It's a TRAP!

The party looked Georg up in the yellow pages, is what they should’ve done. Instead they went into the mountains and went one-by-one down every apartment they could find, detecting corruption until they found a really corrupted doorway. This was a bit silly, but I let it work. They met with Georg, who was sharp and sarcastic. He informed them he did have the book and would lead them to it. He led the way down into the mines. First down shaft T, and then branch R. From there they traveled to the fourth sub-branch into the P-tail. It should’ve been obvious, I’m not sure it was.

Once they arrived, they saw a great crystal in a dark cave and went up to attack it. Arryn actually turned out to be the biggest threat, with his shout and other thunder spells, so Georg attacked him, as did his friend Jim. They were anti-spirals. Then the crystal at the end of the room spawned some orbs. It was weird. Together, the crystal and Georg knocked out Arryn, who was promptly revived by Reade. Eizen and Lorilla made slow progress on the two anti-spirals as their regeneration made them hard to take down straight away, but Eizen had smiting powers and Lorilla had a second weapon. So that worked out for them. With the two anti-spirals down, the crystal hadn’t been spawning its orbs well, and Arryn thundered it down. It didn’t take kindly to this and knocked him out again. But instead of making sure he was dead by exploding orbs above him, the crystal focused on Eizen, who revived Arryn again. With a few more thunderclaps, the crystal was slain and revealed its treasure, the book!

Except it wasn’t the book, it was a satchel. Inside was a noble’s house sigil and a receipt. Georg had bought the book from the temple over a month ago. But there was no book to be found. The party neglected to loot the bodies and left to think in a tavern. As they arrived, they found a messenger from Sargent Matilda—Eizen was being called in for active duty to help with the problems on the border. Now with three, the party had an investigation to attempt.

The investigation begins

The party had defeated two dreamless in their home and tied them up. A quick investigation of the apartment revealed they had rapiers and bows, but nothing else of identification. After a debate on who was best for intimidation, they began the interrogation, focusing only on one of the pair. She didn’t seem to know anything about the book or the murder of Father Agilmar, but she did refer to their creator, a person described as a miner, with scars on his face and arms, as their master. She confirmed that she and her friend were the only dreamless in town. Unable to get anything else out of her about the murder or corruption, Eizen went to fetch a guard to dispose of them lawfully.

The corporal in the guardhouse directed Eizen toward Captain Carrot. Eizen and the Captain conversed for a while and the Captain eventually took custody of the two dreamless, hinting at their eventual death. From there, the party decided to wander around and look for this master. Talking to the wizard’s apprentice, Captain Carrot, the temples, and people frequenting the bars, they narrowed the suspects down to a list of five. They knew to look for a scarred miner who lived in Lady Kaishelm’s mountain slums, so they went down to the mines in the morning and waited, watching people pass by.

A few miners matched the description and, when the foreman noticed them lounging around, they split the party to follow. Eizen and Reade followed a very professional miner named Thomas. He didn’t have much to say but they were able to confirm he wasn’t corrupted enough to be the antithesis. Arryn and Lorilla followed a very friendly man named Gerald, tailing their real target: Mechtild. During their lunchbreak they spoke with Mechtild and Arryn beat him at his scam-game. While Mechtild was slightly corrupted, they could tell he wasn’t the right guy and Gerald lived in the city, not the slums. With nothing to go on, everyone left the mines and, on the way out, noticed another man they identified as Georg, who looked very corrupted. As night fell, they returned to their tavern to debate their next action.

The Intrigue

The Baron had proven unhelpful, so they looked around for a wizard, thinking he would have books. Townsfolk informed them that the most notable wizard was Lady Emma Fredenand over yonder. She had a large shop manned by her assistant Norbert Hildegard. He was nice, but young and inexperienced and mostly his duties seemed to consist of mixing and running errands. He took a look in their library but couldn’t find the book they were looking for. They asked who else might have books and he told them that the best places would be the Baron, Emma, the wealthy landowner Monika Kaishelm, and the Temple of Olim (who maintained the largest library in the city).

They headed over to the temple and were directed to the library. Inside, Lorilla caught the novice librarian, Vulfgang, writing some fanfiction of a book by some Esterlands author with whom she was slightly familiar. Eizen didn’t understand the concept, so someone explained it to him while Vulfgang checked the catalog for the book. As he looked, Eizen looked through the shelves to find some books that might relate to his holy symbol, the Last Stand. He found something on history and mythology and checked them out for later. Vulfgang came back a few minutes later and said the book wasn’t in their catalog. Reade asked if anyone else might know about it and he echoed they could check with the Baron, Emma, and Lady Kaishelm. Reade pressed him if he would know anything else about this book and that’s when Vulfgang told them that he’d only taken charge of the library a few weeks ago, after the previous monk, Father Carolus Agilmar, had been found dead in the river.

This raised several eyebrows and the party thanked him and went off to deliberate. They started with checking out Lady Kaishelm’s estate, where a maid informed them that the Lady did not possess that book but would make an appointment for two days out. Then they figured to investigate more into the dead priest. They headed to the local guardhouse to speak to the Captain. He was intrigued at their interest, quickly noting the connection between their interest in a book and Father Agilmar’s death. The investigation hadn’t concluded anything odd, just that an old man had fallen into the river at some point during the night, but he confided a secret piece of information to Eizen, who told Lorilla and Reade, and strictly informed them to keep it a secret from the townsfolk. Higara had a bit of boneitis, but thought that was odd anyway. From this information, they immediately recognized that Father Agilmar had been killed by corruption, meaning there was at least one antithesis in town, probably more.

They went to take a look at the river bank where the man was found and Lorilla and Reade used detect corruption to affirm the presence of lingering corruption in the river and the bank. There was no detectable trail in the river, but Lorilla figured that he must have been killed upstream to have floated down, and so they walked back into town, noting small traces of corruption here and there. When they arrived near the docks the trail went cold, but Lorilla caught a hint of a mobile source of corruption in the crowd. She and Reade tailed the culprit, an ordinary-looking woman whom Arryn and Eizen couldn’t pick out from the crowd, as she went around shopping. Eventually she went home and they set up an ambush.

As soon as she stepped outside, they moved in to intercept. A quick hold person from Eizen immobilized her and they dragged her back inside her home under the cover of an illusion from Arryn. Inside, however, was a friend who immediately began battle by swiping a hand of strange black fire at Lorilla. Reade quickly blinded the two while the party set about knocking the second lady out. Before they could, the first recovered from her paralysis and Arryn moved in to grab her. She reacted by grabbing him with her black fire-hands and he badly attempted to suplex her. His height and lack of skill at this made it a significant problem and he fell over. Luckily Eizen and Lorilla managed to subdue her and pull her off of a dazed Arryn, while Reade knocked out her friend. Tying them up, the party inspected the room to find nothing of interest, and then brought in Higara to set about with their interrogation.

The trip

The party left Bluesky City early with four days to arrive in Kabuto. It would have been unremarkable were it not for a strange woman who appeared on the side of the road. She wore robes of a wizard and waved the party down for help. Higara sent Arryn to say hello, but his seductive performance was underwhelming. Still, the lady was nice enough to inform them that her familiar had scattered some of her important items around and wouldn’t they be so kind as to look for them? Higara was very suspicious, but the party went to investigate anyway. She had taken a nap beneath a tree, she said, and in the tree they found her familiar, a pseudo-dragon who was feeling very uncooperative. Reade tried to get it to come down with some food, but it didn’t want to go anywhere. So they set about to look. Fortunately they were smart enough to have detect magic prepared ahead of time.

They found her spellbook in some rocks nearby and her spell component pouch in the same tree as the familiar. Reade thought he had sensed something down by the creek and went down to investigate while Higara talked with the lady. He asked where she was heading and why, trying to see who she was. He was very suspicious that she needed their help for a set of tasks that were so easily completed. She told him she was going to Bluesky to meet with a renowned golemancy professor. Higara asked for the details of the research interest, perhaps in an attempt to reveal her as a charlatan or perhaps out of genuine curiosity. Either way she launched into a very technical babble about the Bluesky golemancy techniques, noting they were very different from the ones she was used to back home (something about multicores vs. unicores). Higara was unfazed by the technobabble but even more suspicious that she would be unable to help herself.

Meanwhile Reade found her staff lodged in some rocks downstream, too far to reach even with mage hand. Luckily Eizen had retrieved a ring of water walking from Meg and was able to saunter down, grab it, and return easily. As they returned, Higara pulled Reade aside while Arryn tried to talk with the lady. Reade acknowledged that this whole thing was odd, but also noted that wizards needed their spellbooks to do much of anything. Still, he asked Higara to distract the lady for a few minutes while he identified the staff. It turned out to be much more powerful than he expected, and composed of some strange sort of magic, something he hadn’t really seen much before. Higara and the lady talked for a while but eventually, as Reade finished up, she decided she’d had enough. She firmly turned down the remainder of Higara’s conversation and suspicion and took her staff. Thanking the party, she stepped into the clearing and spoke to her familiar in some strange, guttural language. It joined her handily and she wrapped a large pair of wings around herself and in a flash of light, transformed into a young Bronze Dragon.

Most of the party thought it was cool. Higara was unimpressed. She informed them it was a simple test of their goodness, like one finds in any fairy tale. While she was grateful for their help, she noted Higara’s reticience and caution. She warned them to be a bit more open-minded and look at their adventure with less black-and-white morality than Higara’s patron would want, but promised to remember their assistance. Higara was a bit grumpy, the others were sufficiently awed, the dragon flew off toward Bluesky, and the party continued down the road.

Right before they arrived, they were ambushed by a few bandits. It was nothing special, some poor archers in the underbrush, who were summarily dispatched by the party. They only got a close look at one, who wore a mask, so they couldn’t tell much about their assailants. There was a peculiar monk who bounced off of Eizen in his retreat, but after one archer was killed the others fled. It was a short encounter, and they moved on, entering town.

Kabuto is described elsewhere, but the party had no time to admire the environs. They went straight to the Baron’s place, intent on finding the manuscript for Elone. They walked up to his door and knocked, only to be greeted by a butler. A butler who informed them that the Baron didn’t have the book. And it’d be a week if they wanted to get an appointment. They said they’d get back to him, found a place to stay for the night, and sat down to think where the book could be.

Gathering information and making preparations

After arriving in a big commotion the previous day, the party laid low in a local establishment for a little while until it was time to visit with Sister Elone and reviewed their missions. Eizen reminded them that part of their purpose in coming here was to try and obtain some aid for Wilhorn’s Hold and Lyrise. Unfortunately, they had already made that task harder. He told them about his conversation with Matilda and her assessment of the situation. Normally she would have been highly supportive of this request, but they managed to screw up their entrance badly enough that she would have to think twice about it. She warned him that getting the support of the local nobles would be difficult as well, even without them making it harder on themselves. With that in mind, and having some time before they met with Elone, they decided to ask around the town and see who the local nobility was. By lunch they’d compiled a short list:

Countess Elizabeth Bligh: A countess from old money, conservative and values propriety.

Lord Jevalia: A younger, high-ranking knight who earned his position through dueling and heroics.

Ambassador Fingariel Orellia: The elven ambassador from Calisaele, known for being less snobby about alcohol than usual and often excited to try new stuff. Very good at his job.

Ambassador Ominia: A quiet and withdrawn illumian with an unpronounceable name. The ambassador from the Ominian Empire.

Tailor Mara: A local Tailor who often serves and works with the nobility, very dull when not talking about work.

Marquis Sillof: A younger noble from the south side of the mountains whose sheep and wine production has recently become very profitable with the sealing of Lyrise.

The party decided to try to speak with Ambassador Orellia later that evening, but first they had an appointment with Sister Elone. They arrived at the temple and were seated and served by a novice. It was very nice, but for some reason they were kept waiting for quite a while. When they were finally called in, it was Priestess Anna who met them, not Sister Elone. Anna informed them that Sister Elone, whom she referred to as the Oneiroi, was unavailable due to an urgent political meeting and that given the commotion yesterday had deemed the party not the best to associate with at the moment. In that vein, she bluntly informed them that while the church would provide echite to the Expedition, they would not be funding the party right now. Not only had they caused a small panic yesterday, but they were too inexperienced to handle a powerful vampire lord capable of converting souls directly to undead and somehow protected from the effects of the curse. Suitably chastised, the party humbly agreed. Even so, Anna and Elone were grateful for their efforts and impressed by their survivability and work ethic. She reassured them that the church wasn’t going to cast the party aside, but there were other jobs that needed doing and better fit the party’s current skills.

Their quest would be to go get a certain manuscript from the nearby town of Kabuto. Four days away and rules by a local Baron, the town housed a small library and this book only recently came to the attention of Sister Elone. Supposedly it contained material that would help relate to the curse, but so far Elone’s couriers couldn’t obtain it. Anna wouldn’t say why, but she didn’t think it was related to the happenings in the south border. She reassured them that this task would definitely be up their alley and that the church would continue to support the Expedition and they would be compensated with at least 1000 gp, depending on how well the quest went, of course. That was enough to get everyone to agree to sign up and away they went.

But by away, of course, they just meant they were off to look for Ambassador Orellia. With nothing to go on but his well-known love of diverse (but still classy) drinks, they set out to look through every bar until they found him. Predictably they failed, but in an interesting manner. The first place they attended was a bust, but the second was an elven artsy place. Despite knowing he preferred new wines, they were determined to see if he was here. Elves are a bit snobbish, though, and no one came to seat them. Luckily Reade and Arryn knew how to get attention, and took a seat at a table and began playing a game with stones, giving themselves a haughty, disinterested look as if they were only there out of gracious boredom. This was the right thing to do and pretty soon a few others joined in their game of Calvinball. While Arryn wasn’t familiar with it, he managed to do well enough to obtain the interest of one lady. They inquired about the ambassador and she offered to exhcange information if Arryn had something to give as well.

This was his big chance to shine as a bard, as a collector of stories, a legendary musician, and a master of seduction. “My lady,” he boldly declared, “I would sing for you a song worthy…of a song…”

Everyone stared at him. Lorilla leaned over and punched his arm, “You idiot! You’re supposed to say I would play a great song to your beauty or something.”

Intrigued, the lady looked to Lorilla and asked her what she would do while Arryn mumbled and sputtered on the side. Lorilla said she was no artist save for the martial arts, but if needed she would deliver such a precise blow to her ladyship’s foes that her ladyship would know her devotion. The elf was impressed and asked if she would demonstrate and Lorilla vowed on her honor to do so if needed. The lady then revealed that a particular man (an arrogant mansplainer) had criticized her literary work most foully and she required a champion to seek satisfaction against him. Lorilla affirmed her commitment to be the lady’s champion, and so in the full public view of the bar the lady challenged this gentleman to a duel, proclaiming Lorilla as her champion. The man laughed and chose the rapier, overconfident in his ability to out-fight this smaller opponent. The lady handed Lorilla her own, elegant weapon and they squared off.

The group adjourned to a private courtyard and a referee was chosen. The duel was to satisfaction. Lorilla took her stance and faced her opponent, the fire of Mohorin burning blue in her eyes. Her fierce gaze and stance exuded confidence and her focus was unassailable, while her opponent’s sword wavered and his eyes darted around nervously. Even the onlookers, who had at first glance assumed Lorilla’s stature gave her the weaker position, could tell how this battle was decided. According to the rules of dueling, the gentleman could have forfeited at this time, but his pride wouldn’t let him. As he began to move his sword, Lorilla lunged and struck the back of his hand through his guard, just scratching the skin. He dropped his sword in shock and the lady proudly declared victory. As one young bard put it later on:

A stately pine looms
Against the little ash. At once!
Only his blood moved.

The elf introduced herself as the Lady Jemarillia Loridyllyne, or the Lady Jem for short. She was a collector and dealer of rare archaeological works. Reade showed her the scroll from Xianti and she became very excited. She informed them it was from a village in the Verdayl Empire, which once occupied the Esterlands, and was written in Middle Common. The content was boring, but the scroll was surely valuable. Considering how Reade had found it, she was willing to bet that the original owner or dealer was still in the city. She promised to make some inquiries as whoever dropped it would probably pay handsomely for its return. Additionally, in return for Lorilla’s skill she promised to obtain a brief audience with Ambassador Orellia the next day. Everyone ended the evening in high spirits, and grateful for each other’s assistance.

The next morning a messenger came bearing the Ambassador’s seal. He delivered an invitation for the group to attend lunch. After some preparation, they met in one of the city’s nicer lunchtime establishments with a terrific view of the sea. The Ambassador was a true gentleman, outgoing and interested in their accomplishments and stories without ever being boring or condescending. As they told of their adventure in Lyrise and their goals here, he asked a few shrewd questions to test their arguments.

“What is the nature of the threat within the country?”
“How do you expect aid to be given, as Lyrise is too dangerous to enter?”
“How does Calisaele benefit from either country providing aid to a dead land?”

Fingariel was a highly skilled diplomat, one of the best in Calisaele’s service. The threat posed by an army of the undead was clear, as was the nature of the help being asked for. But he needed to be sure that it was bad enough to require aid, and that the party understood the larger, geo-politi-spiritual picture. An army is bad enough, but can be defeated with stronger armies of which surely both Manscell and Calisaele have. Certainly it would be better to take care of this problem while still small, but together the countries could easily stand victorious against the undead of Lyrise. The real reason to intervene early was to prevent Myotismon from doing what Echoe had done long ago: build spiritual power through building a nation. The people of either country would rather spend taxes on a war than on prevention of a war, unless something greater than their nation was at stake. In these highly mono-theistic countries, the threat of an evil god gaining the same amount of power as their own, the threat of the spread of the Church of the Dead, was a much better motivational tool than merely preventing war (particularly in proud countries that had held off the Ominians). Orellia knew that had they tried this diplomacy in Jeberra, the officials would have laughed and challenged the vampire to bring his army against them. But forced conversion to an evil god would be justification for an immediate Holy War.

Once the party was led to this conclusion, Orellia relented, satisfied. He agreed to help them in their cause, despite their initial faux pas. He echoed Anna’s suggestion, though, that they not try again for a little while, let the military worry about the border and forget about them. They agreed and made preparations to set out for Kabuto the next day.

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The party needed echite and needed to do something with Meg. Before leaving Wilhorn’s Hold, they spoke with Wilhorn briefly to see if he wanted to keep Meg. He did not. However, Reade remembered an obscure (actual, real-life) bit of vampire lore: most vampires are compelled to count things. Reade was able to create small, illusory hourglass to hold her attention but he was concerned about the night. Fortunately, he was able to convince Wilhorn to part with a large, decorative hourglass that seemed it would last the night. They were a bit uncertain, and Wilhorn advised them to just kill her, but at Eizen’s request they refused and chained her to the hourglass, resetting it as needed and keeping watch. With that, they set out.

The trip was scheduled to take about two weeks: one to reach the border and another to reach Bluesky. A few days in they came upon a number of clothes strewn about the ground beneath some bushes. Curious, they poked around and found a nearby stream in which someone might have bathed, but there was no one there. Disappointed in the immediate lack of naked people, and without Eizen to remind them to look around, they shrugged and moved along.

Three days later, right before the checkpoint, they came across a painter working on a scenic landscape of the foothills and mountains in the distance. He seemed really chill and asked if they would position themselves in the painting. Together they worked out a beautiful tableau of a traveling dwarf being hunted by a mysterious knight and his fiendish bloodhound. Mohorin stood at the back of the hunter while the dwarf ran toward aid offered by Vardalon, all while watched by the specter of death, looking into her hourglass at the dwarf’s fate. It was magnificent and we need to get someone to ink and paint it properly.
(I will insert the picture here later)

The next day they arrived at the border checkpoint. The guards recognized Eizen and spoke with him briefly, granting them passage. They looked grim and down on their luck, though. When asked about their business, Arryn informed the guards they had a message for Sergeant Matilda in Bluesky regarding the vampires. The guard’s face went pale and he ordered them to wait while he fetched his superior. Nervous, they waited for Border Captain Kathryn to arrive and told her the story so far. She summoned them to her tent to tell them why everyone looked so glum. About a week ago, mysterious undead appeared out of the woods, out of nowhere, and began harassing the border encampment. The first wave was brutal, but they managed to drive off the undead soldiers. Since then, though, the camp has been the target of repeated attacks every night and they haven’t been able to send word back to Bluesky for reinforcements due to reduced manpower.

Kathryn asked for the party’s help either in defeating the undead or in taking a message to Bluesky. She reassured them they would probably be able to hold out until the reinforcements arrived, knowing it would be at least two weeks. Arryn and Reade seemed willing to take a message, so she drafted a letter and entrusted it to the party: for express delivery only to Sergeant Matilda and not to anyone else in the front gate of the city near tons of gossipy and panicky people. >_>

So the party moved on. A few days later, as they crested the foothills they came upon a nest of snakes in the path. Thanks to their counting machine, they determined there were precisely 57 snakes. Thanks Meg! However, no one in the party was a herpetologist, and so despite how cute the snakes were, had no idea if they were venomous or not. Thus Reade carefully magicked them out of the way and they continued.

Nearing the city, about a day away, they stopped for lunch. As they ate, Reade noticed a glint of bronze in some rocks a little way away. His owl, El Diablo Birbo, said it was an old scroll case and he scrambled over in excitement to find it. It was old and rusted with some bare ornamentation. They tried to open it, but even using Arryn as a wrench they couldn’t manage it. Reade was disappointed but they put it aside for later.

Finally they arrived at Bluesky the next day. They joined throng of people gaining entrance and waited for the guards to look over folks’ as they came in. When the guards came up they asked what the reason for entrance was. And Reade, or Arryn, said, “Oh, we’re here to tell Sergeant Matilda about the border being attacked by undead. See? We have a letter from Border Captain Kathryn.” This did not go over well with the guard, who had just enlisted for the pay to support his granny only a few weeks ago, and was thus not trained or authorized to handle national emergencies. However, to his credit, he did the right thing and passed the buck up the chain. His boss, a corporal, came out to hear the story for the second time in front of a crowd of now scared onlookers and look at the letter. Like the underling before him, Corporal Fred had joined some twenty years ago to support his family and had since married and seen a kid grow up and move out and was now just here as a way to fill time, get a pension, and keep bread on the table. This meant he was also not trained to handle national emergencies, but he knew enough to go fetch his boss, the gate captain.

Captain Vimes was not authorized to handle national emergencies. But it turns out that being captain of the City Guard means you deal with them every so often, nipping them in the bud before they become national emergencies. Thus he had experience, and a certain gruffness that brooked no dissent or argument. At the sight of the letter he sent out riders to the border and ordered the gates closed. An escort was prepared for the party and their carriage thoroughly inspected. Nothing out of the ordinary was revealed except for a wayward snake, which Lorilla took a liking to and named Anastasia (she is a pretty snek). A cleric nearly scanned the party but Eizen quickly took him aside and persuaded him to let them in for Sergeant Matilda to handle. He released them reluctantly so they wouldn’t notice Meg.

The party was escorted by several soldiers to the city’s main compound with runners sent ahead to fetch Sergeant Matilda. Gossip, however, moves faster than people do and by the time they arrived a sizable crowd had assembled to watch Matilda and her guard wait on the steps in full regalia. She recognized Eizen’s illness and addressed Lorilla (as she was the highest ranking and best understood such things). Matilda, very loudly, welcomed this messenger from Mohorin and her retainers, thanking them for their aid in bringing messages when no one else could, doing what she could to help keep the people of Manscell and Bluesky City safe. Even though this wasn’t Lorilla’s home country, common enemies made allies of them both. A few paid urchins cheered and applauded, easing people’s tensions. Matilda invited the party inside to discuss further plans while the guard milled about outside looking impressive and dispersing the crowd.

Once in and safely in her office, she turned cold, demanding the letter from Kathryn. Reading it, she confirmed their account with Kathryn’s and technically thanked them for the news. It would’ve been nicer if they’d helped out, or if they’d not gone around shouting problems at the public, but she was very glad to receive the care of Meg, promising to extract lots of information from her. Meg cursed them, but she was met by two monks of Olim, not known for being yielding and they hustled her away. With that, the party asked for help with their quest: echite and so on for the expedition, but Matilda turned them away, telling them to go ask at the church of Echoe. She was not in the best of moods, but promised to speak to Eizen later, and thus dismissed them.

Tossed out, the party sat in the square unsure of what to do. At first they’d had a good welcome, and then suddenly sent away with what was only technically a thank you. With nothing to do they struggled to open Reade’s scroll case. Eventually a nearby guard noticed and felt embarrassed on their behalf and popped the top off for them. The scroll within was in a very old script, hard to read, and in Middle Common besides. The best Reade could make out was that it was a Charter for the Village of Xianti. Intrigued, he put it back and they were about to go look for the church of Echoe when a commotion issued forth from the barracks. A rider in silver regalia and a white and red cloak bolted out. She wore an ivory half-mask and had carefully curled auburn hair. In the square she was joined by Matilda and some other mounted officers. The rider held aloft a faceted silver sword decorated with a rose and flourished it shouting, “For the Glory of Manscell!” Then they rode off toward the palace. Now, with the gossip off of them, the party headed off toward the temple.

They got lost.

Fortunately they had El Diablo Birbo to scout for them, but alas he wasn’t good at finding buildings. Neither Reade nor Arryn could describe it, but Lorilla knew from her studies about the symbols associated with Echoe and told Diablo Birbo to look for the moon. He was thrilled and led them straight there where they received a pamphlet from a novice. They spoke with her about getting an audience with a priestess and she got Priestess Anna. She was excited to see people from the expedition and informed them that they could meet with Sister Elone the next day.

Or: know when to run

A group of shadows had gone by in the early morning, escaping the sun’s rays. Then a pair of golems on patrol. The sun was too bright too move but it wasn’t bored. Finally, three men passed by in the street, one after the other. These were the three to keep an eye on. They wandered through the streets, names appearing: Higara, Reade, Eizen. They were separated a bit, keeping within easy watch of the other in case something happened, but still allowing for a wide search area. A good strategy for later. It was hard to watch, but nothing tried to hinder its observation.

The men wandered through the city until evening, then returned to a house marked with a green orb. The shadows and specters stayed away from these houses and the golems didn’t investigate houses more than once-a-day. The men were talking about how the raven had seen some golems go into and leave a house with a box, and when they’d looked in that house, the orb had turned grey that evening. They said that it looked like the grey houses were concentrated along the main streets, though the alleys were full of lesser undead. Tomorrow they would try looking around again. The wizard was confident he could determine a pattern. They slept the night peacefully.

The next day they wandered the streets, keeping out of alleys and ducking down sidestreets to avoid golem patrols. Eizen and Higara returned to the house that the golem had visited the other day, but they didn’t find anything. Reade spent the day looking at patrol patterns and poking his head in houses to check the color of their orbs. He was more interesting. He witnessed golems go into a house and come out a while later without any box, and the orb within was grey immediately. That evening they all returned to their house to conclude that the golems had some sort of hub toward the city center. So at night they resolved to go out and look for it, just the three of them. Night was easier to move in.

As they moved around the city, they heard sounds of a golem and a person around a corner. Higara charged out and froze as one of the waiting ghosts used its power on him, aging him to a middle-aged man. Then at the voice, the other two perked up and joined the fight. They recognized it and named it, “Meg.” Move to a high point. Meg ran up the side of a building to use a crossbow, but the wizard and paladin stepped into mist and teleported up to meet her. Higara fled the battlefield, out of sight, pursued by one ghost while the other joined the fight on the rooftops. Meg bounced around a bit, swiping with clawed hands at Reade and Eizen, but was never able to get close enough to grab them, so she jumped down the other side. Eizen went to see and fended her off, but she ran and hid. They killed the ghost and the golem wandered off, since it couldn’t climb. They returned to the house, not finding Higara. Search for the warlock. Not found. Not found. There. His activities were noted and he returned to the others. They decided to wait for the morning.

In the morning they split up. Reade looked around at the city center. Eizen and Higara searched the area from last night. All they found was a house with a grey orb which had a dark circle on the floor surrounding the orb. No obvious tracks of Meg. Reade suspected a certain square in the city center, and found a house with a tall room for a good view. It was not secure. Grey orb. They went in. Shadows followed, but were swiftly dispatched. Reade spotted the golems entering an underground stairway in the square. They decide to investigate in the morning.

The stairs lead to an antechamber and tunnel, hollowed out post-curse and guarded by two powerful golems, infused with extra energy, and a locked iron gate. Within was dangerous, but noted. Back to the entrance. The three men came down in the morning and made a plan to bait the golems up the stairs. Eizen baited them, but they only went as far as the bottom step and would not climb. Even so, Reade cast grease and caused the golems to fall down. Eizen paralyzed one while Higara set the grease on fire. One golem returned to its post while the other was destroyed. Then the fire was put out and the second golem was swiftly dispatched from range. They decided to take a short rest to recover. A tactical error, knowing what was below.

As they settled in to their lunch, two ghosts materialized in the center of their group. They were unfazed, but the distraction was enough for the creature known as Meg and her partner, identified later as “David” to burst through the gate and attack. Higara fought off David’s poison gas, but Meg surprised Eizen, latched on, and began biting his neck, draining his blood. For several seconds Higara and Reade fought off the ghosts and recovered their wits, then Higara used his chain to pull Meg off of Eizen, who rose and healed himself. Meg escaped the chain and ran back into the cavern to shoot with her crossbow again. David attacked with spells and claws. The ghosts harried Reade and Higara until they decided to retreat. Eizen attempted to follow, attacking David first and then running. He was careless and a ghost reached into his heart as he ran past. He collapsed at the bottom of the stairs and the ghosts swarmed, draining his life force.

Tactical error: Meg and David prepared for the return of the other two instead of killing off the paladin. Conjecutre: his proximity to the sunlight may have concerned them, and neither he nor his friends were threats; not a wise use of resources. Tactical error: Higara and Reade returned to drag Eizen up the stairs, using Higara’s chain instead of running. Conjecture: they assumed they were unlikely to be injured by one or two attacks and determined Eizen’s future ability was worth the risk, and they had no healing magic to use from a distance.

They pulled him up the stairs and he woke. Conjecture: his training with rocks was similar to being hit on the head by each step, causing him to rally to his faith and awaken again. He shouted profanity at Meg and David, identifying them, and the three ran away. Meg and David and the ghosts returned below. They were observed for a time preparing for the next assault. Then the three men were observed, back in the house from days ago where the other two, Lorilla and Arryn, lay with a sudden onset of bone-itis, which appeared to be clearing. With five of them, they too began to prepare to face the undead below the city.

Will continue to observe for the Master. Conjecture: the party is no threat, and will die.

Did they do anything? They leveled up...

With the ritual a success in Gospen, the party took a brisk look around. Although day was upon them, it was easy enough to see that though the fog was banished, the undead were not. The party took the day to rest and recover and make sure Ixy was protected, as she didn’t want to leave just yet. Particularly since about halfway through the day, the echite sphere beneath the temple began doing something odd. It began to spin and hum with a low, rumbling tone. No one had any clue what was happening beyond some sort of conjuration. Arryn sang a harmonic, and a hymn, which sounded nice but didn’t alter anything. Reade held up his echite to the sphere, and it sang like a bowl, but there was no change. Ixy suspected this was only the beginning of something bigger so she asked to stay for now, to be picked up later. As the party left, they noticed something else odd: outside the church, near the front-facing stained glass window, hovered 12 strange distortions in the air, almost like pockets of hot air. They were arranged into a clock-face and the 1 o’clock position was faintly illuminated. Waiting during the day didn’t change this, and so they hypothesized that perhaps it was a counter, measuring how many spheres like this had been “connected to the network.”

They traveled north along the main road, blazing a new trail through the fog. This time, the DM did add some encounters along the way, so hopefully it felt more interesting. As they rode, they noticed a red tinge to the fog in the distance. Initial scouting revealed that it was very far away, but it got bigger throughout the day. As it grew and grew they could see there was no going around it, and it appeared to be very windy. Finally the storm grew close enough to dig in. Reade and Arryn beneath the carriage, Lorilla and Higara inside, and Eizen out with the horses, keeping them from bolting. The storm broke ferociously, red winds howling about them, dust in their eyes, the carriage shaking about precariously.

The storm raged for ages. The wind blew through their clothes, biting into their bones like winter. It was all they could do to think of themselves and their continued mission here. The wind blew and blew until it seemed it had even scoured time itself, making an unearthly rhythm hypnotically stealing away attention and desire. The winds of Pandemonium blew for a long time, but eventually they abated. The party couldn’t say how long it had been but eventually the storm passed and the dust settled. For the most part they were unharmed, but Arryn seemed a bit lost in thought, swaying still to the rhythm of the storm. As they broke him out, they noticed a feather falling down. Finding this odd, Arryn reached back and noticed that he now had feathers growing out of the back of his neck. Large red ones, seeming faintly of evocation and giving off some sparks if burned. How odd. With the storm behind them, though, they continued to move forward.

The next day they sat down for a lunch by the Sartrune River, which they were following north to Volea. It was a lovely lunch until they were falling through the air. And then running to school naked. And then on fire in a carriage. And then eating candy trees. And then riding on dragons fighting zombies. And then back at home eating a pie of marigolds and whiskey birds. And so on and on and on and on. And then it was done. Barely any time had passed and they found themselves on the river bank again. A hundred dreams in the span of a minute with no explanation or consequences or anything to even say it had happened. Unnerved they continued along the road cautiously.

On the third day they finally approached Volea. As they came over a ridge to see the city, suddenly it disappeared and they found themselves somewhere else. As far as they could tell, north was still the same, and they weren’t in the fey. Someone looked at the sun and thought that maybe they’d just been displaced in time slightly. After some further travel, sure enough they came upon the city again. But nothing else happened and so they moved in, facing off against two golems guarding the entryway. It was a tough fight but they gained entry and began to explore.

The city was much like last time. The temple toward the city center was still walled off with no visible reason why. Anxious and antsy, Higara decided the best thing to do would be to charge the first group of patrolling golems, a group of three plus a ghostly friend (who aged Arryn by 10 years). Despite having a hard time with the golems outside, they adjust their tactics and make quick work of these last few. It still wasn’t pleasant and so they decide to camp out in a nearby house, making sure to find one that still has a green orb, of course. And so now they must decide what to do: stick around and investigate, or leave and go back to Ixy or Theld for information.

Ixyctions'th'eja{pel}kka Monsrorrr/f/gthackkkh

The next day the party decided to set forth to find a priestess of Echoe. On their way out of town they came across a gnomish cleric of Mohorin. She introduced herself as Lorilla and had found her way here, like everyone else, via a mysterious dream. With Echoe’s interference well established, but her purpose unknown, the party consulted a map and decided to head north towards Bluesky City. The road was uneventful and the party spent it with small-talk and games of cards.

Eventually the party arrived, and immediately split up to handle their various businesses in town. Arryn attempted to buy some armor, while Higara got a suspiciously quiet parrot. Eizen reported to his superiors in the army, informing his captain of the developments in Lyrise and requesting supplies. She was rather concerned due to the influence of Myotismon and provided the party with a fair bit of help, though sending troops was beyond her power. Lorilla spent her time at the local temple of Mohorin, training and sparring and recounting her great adventures against fearsome foes and mighty wildlife (being particularly proud of taking down a large bear). And Reade went looking for a priestess.

At the temple of Echoe, the head priestess was highly interested in his report, both intrigued and deeply concerned. Since most of the church’s wealth and resources were located in Lyrise, there wasn’t much she could do right away. She promised to tell Elone, and called forth an acolyte the church had been preparing for this. Obviously they didn’t know what their first foray into their homeland would be like, but it is always good to have scouts ready. The new priestess introduced herself as Ixy, an earthen Genasi from Kal’renth. She took the day to prepare, allowing the party to rest at a local inn.

In most stories, the resting would have been boring and not-talked-about. In this one however, the party got drunk. Again, not noteworthy. Until Arryn began singing. He wasn’t very good, but he was very drunk. As he sang, he didn’t pay any attention to his performance. He began to dance, and as he did, it was as if the lights in the room grew darker. People became quiet, enraptured and mesmerized. Higara got nervous. Then Arryn began to glow, and the audience began to glow, and then their energy began to flow onto the stage. At this point, Higara tackled Arryn, breaking the spell. He woke the next day with a large hangover and the party set off.

The party set out towards Wilhorn’s Hold to get some echite from Theld, and then into Lyrise proper. While the journey was as strange as usual, it was otherwise uneventful until Gospen, a decision the DM wonders about now since even though it moved things along, it didn’t make the journey feel like a journey or the cursed land feel weird, strange, or dangerous. Oh well. The point is that the party got to Gospen, put Ixy in front of the echite sphere where she said, “Ok, I’ll do something with it, go protect me?”

Then the party stayed up all night, fought a bunch of bad guys, and kept the church safe. As the sky lightened, a great blast of light went out from the church, dispelling the fog.

A Golem Town

As the party approached the waypoint, marked only by a campsite and a lean-to for firewood, they spotted a lonely adventurer sitting by the fire. He appeared simple save for an intricate tattoo of a chain on his arm. Reade greeted the newcomer carefully, but he was just as wary and confused as they were. He introduced himself as Higara Naminae and claimed he had no memory of how he arrived there save something in a dream. The party accepted this tentatively, preferring to wait until he could prove himself. With nowhere to go, Higara asked to accompany the party for at least a little while and they agreed. With this newcomer, they continued on down the road toward Aventurine.

Nothing terribly interesting occurred along the way, but within a few days of trailblazing a town came into view. It sat on the Sartrune River, perhaps the same size as Gospen (sans walls), with a number of banners flying above the entrance. Strangely two emblems flew, one belonging to the well-known Baroness Gwenett de Sal, an azure shield atop a field of green with a dragon rampant. The other, unknown, was simpler, composed of red-black-red diagonal bars with the black bearing thorns and a stylized red heart in the center. The former definitely looked like the rest of the land, but the latter had clearly been placed there since the curse. Exploring the town revealed that, like Gospen, the houses within were a mix of grey and green orbs. Toward the center lay a church to Echoe, surrounded by a green barrier.

Eizen and the others examined the barrier, but there was no sign of any seal of Myotismon nearby or any undead attacking the temple. Uncertain of what to do, the party waited for a while, on the lookout for any nearby undead. It was not too long after that a group of ghosts and specters came upon them and attacked. Unlike Gospen, they were accompanied by a golem, created by debris of building materials, dirt, and trash, stuff that may have been more easily obtained from the strange curse that lay across the city. The golem hit hard, but Higara proved himself to be an apt fighter, channeling dark eldritch energies and a mysterious infernal chain. Eizen was wary of this, of course, but after the fight, holed up in a nearby house for safety, Higara explained his background and motivations, enough to placate the paladin at least. With this new news in hand, as well as the news of Gospen, the next day they fled the town to return to Theld.

En route, they met with Emlyn Anrai back in the village of Aelynn, in the great estate. Emlyn was happy to see his friend Reade, again, and they discussed research and the orbs and undead. Emlyn didn’t have much interesting information to impart, but he requested that they try to find some carinite. Reade acquiesced and they continued on their way.

Once they returned, they were surprised to find that Wilhorn had been busy building a few new houses. He was glad to see his friends safe and sound, having heard of the horrible fates many adventurers had met with (and having seen some of the weirdness within for himself). He greeted the party and did a good job selling them on some land at a cheap rate. Eizen went and marked out a few acres for himself but the other two were less interested at the time. They were eager to speak to Theld, but the priest of Manny was rather unhappy at their news. Less grumpy than before, the news of the undead was greatly concerning to him. Clearly, he said, some agents of Myotismon were hiding with the fog, up to no good and somehow converting souls to undead. The church of Echoe, and its sphere of echite, down in Gospen were very intriguing, though. He speculated that there might be a way to use it similarly to the echite bracelets, but clearly a priestess of Echoe would be needed. Thus he tasked them with either going to fetch one, returning to Gospen, or investigating Volea.

With these options, and Emlyn’s request to go find some carinite, in mind. Eizen wrote some letters and the party decided to take a break from the curse and go seek out a priestess.

A Ghost Town

The party set off without delay. It seemed Reade and Emlyn knew each other from their past and spent a lot of time catching up on research. Reade had once been a cleric, but turned from Vardalon to the arcane arts of a wizard upon receiving a strange riddle set forth by a dead colleague. Emlyn, on the other hand, had focused their study on the gods themselves, being intrigued by the events of Zerstorung and what followed. She elected to stay behind in Keldrin, claiming to have much research to do and the party continued on, through Yawmarch to Aelynn where they summarily destroyed the seal of Myotismon, which had been fortunately not activated.

Upon reaching the crossroads they turned to the South toward the town of Gospen. Thanks to the weirdness of time and space within the fog, they were able to blaze a trail quickly, reaching the empty, walled city within a few days. Inside they found a mixture of green and gray orbs, but no other sign or traces of Meg and David. A temple of Echoe resided within the city, itself sealed by a strange green wall and another seal of Myotismon. Destroying the seal lowered the barrier, suggesting it may have been defensive, and the party entered. They didn’t find much interesting within the church’s upper floor, but the basement contained a massive sphere of Echite. While too large to move, it explained why the church was free of the mist that lay everywhere else, though the priestess and acolytes had clearly been caught in the main curse. They also found a dagger of echite which allowed itself to be taken and moved, perhaps because of its inherent dream qualities.

Further exploration of the city revealed a strange black ooze within a particular bakery. It shied away from the echite dagger and seemed more interested in retreating than attack. The party pressed it anyway, but ultimately were unsuccessful as Reade set fire to the building and Arryn attempted to pick up a red-hot pot (badly burning his hand and dropping it on his foot, failing his concentration and losing the spell). In the flaming confusion, the ooze fled. Eizen put out the fire and made to leave, but as they walked through the streets they realized that with the sun going down, various undead were beginning to creep out of the woodwork. The party retreated to the church for the night, which was hallowed ground and safe from attack. In the morning, the party left, though not before determining that if they could locate a priestess of Echoe, she could perform some ritual on the echite sphere to expand its influence across the whole town.

As they went to return, they were ambushed by a ghost and its specter lackeys. The very sight of the ghost frightened Reade and Eizen (who was so horrified by the image of his dead wife that he aged 10 years), but didn’t bother Arryn at all. In fact, Arryn seemed to know a bit about the ghost and charged at it while his friends recovered from the shock. He was initially successful, but he was overconfident and allowed the ghost to possess him. Fortunately the ghost was bad at being Arryn and causing harm, and Reade and Eizen were rather competent at destroying the specters. Reade put Arryn to sleep and together hurt the ghost enough to cause it to retreat. Feeling unsafe within the city, the party quickly left and made camp a safe distance away.

After a long rest, they continued onward during the night. Arryn redeemed himself by helping them avoid another fight through a cunning illusion of a strange brown paper box over their carriage. But after that things only became strange. They traveled through the night and into the morning, but as they went the landscape shifted and altered slightly, become more forested and less foggy. By the time they realized, though, there was no turning back: they had wandered into Faerie. Hearing nearby satyrs making music, they put on a small show with Arryn’s bagpipes and Eizen’s (bad) dancing and some fireworks from Reade. Though ultimately outclassed by the satyrs, the fey were amused by such a good show that one of them offered a gift in return: a small golden harp, or the path home.

At first they elected to take the path home, but the satyr pressed on, saying it was the Harp of Fflewddur Fflam. Reade revealed that Fflewddur Fflam was an ancient character out of myth who preceeded the breaking of Abraxas. How he was connected to the adventure was uncertain, especially as, after they refused it a second time, the satyr mentioned it would help them get into Aventurine. At this the party debated with themselves long. Was it better to take the certain path home but be faced with a mystery later, or obtain help and information about said mystery at the cost of the certainty of return? Eizen wanted to go home while Reade wanted the harp. In the end, Arryn chose to go home as well and they thanked the satyr and started back.

Before they left, however, Eizen asked if the fey had seen any sign of Red Ring Rico, an adventurer who had gone missing in the fog and whom Theld had tasked them to look for. The satyr asked what they would give in return and Arryn offered a story. The satyr said that he would have two chances to produce a story they hadn’t heard before, or else the deal was off. Arryn’s first attempt was of the great Lucasian Cycle, a well-known saga among the fey concerning the family of the Sky-Walkers and their destiny as great warrior-monks and wielders of Sabers of Light. Arryn was thoroughly mocked and instead told a story of how a charismatic bard seduced two maidens but was nearly killed by a gnomish assassin. At this the satyr’s reluctantly applauded him and informed Eizen that they knew nothing of Rico: she had not passed this way before, but others had asked of her in the past. At this the two groups parted ways and the party returned to Lyrise, near the campsite that served as the expedition’s final waypoint.

With some debate as to their next move, and plenty of echite remaining, they elected to move on towards Aventurine, to try and get as close as they can.

’Tis a fine evening when three strangers, going in three directions, all meet at a crossroads. Waiting for them was a minstrel wearing the colors of purple and blue. She greeted them with a game of chance, telling their fortunes and explaining that to remember their dreams, they would have to go East. From the North came Eizen, a paladin of Olim, sworn to protect the weak from criminals. From the East came Wilhorn, a noble Sorcerer of Calisaele seeking adventure and purpose. From the South came Arryn, a bard whose motivations are hidden behind his ever charming and shifting facade. To the East they would go, toward the mysterious sealed land of Lyrise. All they knew was that it was sealed, and the fortune given by the minstrel:

“The silver moon sleeps on a throne not hers, thrust into an emerald sea.
While she sleeps the world not stirs, yet awakened she must be.
As she sleeps her binding fades but if she wakes then death will loom.
Lurecia’s Jewel will be her salvation and her doom.”

Not long after they arrived at a waystation, consisting of little more than a tavern and a small shrine to Manny, run by Brother Theld. After an exciting evening’s brawl, Theld sent them off in the morning with the mission entrusted to all in Sister Elone’s expedition: reach Aventurine. To allow them safe passage they were given pieces of Echite, the only protection from the strange fog that pervades the land and seals off the country. Without the Echite, Theld warned them, they would be lost in lands of sleep and dream, or driven mad, or attacked by terrible creatures. Even with the Echite there was no guarantee of safety, but at least they had a path to follow, made by other adventurers before them.

The land within was dreamlike in many ways. Though night fell, it never became dark. Time moved strangely and often could be heard the bells of the fey. Few objects could be altered permanently save what was brought in from outside. Some things could be taken, but as they learned in the first waypoint (a village named Keldrin), anything they picked up would return to its original place within a minute or so. Furthermore, it seemed all the inhabitants of the land, even the animals, were locked in some sort of magical stasis. Within every house floated green orbs, which when touched revealed the image of the person locked within. They could not be moved or interacted with in any way, but seeing other orbs along the path as they went, it was clear that losing their Echite would mean most likely meeting the same fate.

In the second waypoint, the village of Yawmarch, the caravan happened upon two other adventurers: Margaret (Meg) and David, cooking a stew in the expedition’s supply station. Arryn was immediately suspicious of this and asked them a number of questions concerning their identity very aggressively, but the two merely wished to invite the party to dinner. Feeling certain they were cannibals, Arryn drew his weapon and attacked. David responded by biting his neck and draining his life, but quick action from Wilhorn put them to sleep. Upon killing David, they noticed that he turned into mist, and so tied up Meg to wait for her to wake. She refused to answer their questions, though, mocking their ignorance until Eizen blasted her with divine power and turning her to mist as well, though not before confirming she was an undead.

With the two ghosts killed, the party continued to the third waypoint, a larger town known as Aelynn. The place was dominated by a large mansion on the hill, later revealed by Theld to be the house of the Vantrell family who owned the land and were a major producer of sheep and wool for the country. They would have continued straight through if it were not for the strange findings in the town. The orbs in every house, save the mansion, were not green and vibrant, but gray and crumbling to dust. No image arose from them and no spell could determine what had happened. Outside of the mansion was drawn in blood a magic circle bearing the sigil and marks of Myotismon, acting as a beacon or marker. They chose to leave it alone, entering the mansion instead. Inside they found little of interest save for a strange, secret dungeon accessible from a games room. Theld later confirmed the dungeon to have been a place for the nobles to engage in some more interesting nightly activities, but it contained no clues to the curse, Aventurine, or the mystery of the grey orbs.

With a little more Echite available the party pressed on to the end of the path, a small campsite where different adventurers had had different ideas of the next way to go. To the North-East lay the road to Aventurine. To the South-East lay a trail to other towns, and to the North-West ran a trail back toward the coast and Manscell, in hopes of finding a faster route into the country. Tracks left by some previous travelers led to the South-East and the party followed them for a day or so, until the path ended. With little Echite, they returned to Brother Theld to report on their news.

The Brother was frightened by the news of the gray orbs and furious at their handling of Meg and David and the seal of Myotismon in Aelynn. He informed them the tracks they had followed were most likely left by Meg and David as they were almost certainly not dead. Giving them larger crystals of Echite, suitable for blazing a trail, he charged them with the quest to follow their tracks, bless the remaining orbs to protect them, destroy the seal in Aelynn, and try to find Meg and David. They had until the morning to leave, but as they retired for the night they ran into a mysterious stranger in the tavern: Emlyn Anrai, a scholar doing research in the area. They convinced Emlyn to accompany them inside after some cajoling and careful persuasion.

Meanwhile, yet another adventurer, a wizard named Reade, found his way to the town on his own mission to join the expedition. Feeling crowded, and sensing a purpose in building this town and thereby acquiring wealth and power, Wilhorn elected to stay behind to oversee things. He subsequently named the place “Wilhorn’s Edge.”

Come morning, the party set off, this time to blaze a trail and discover just what mysteries lay within.

In two parts

The Battle of Manny

War. Not a war of swords and magic, but a war of beliefs and ideals. Such a war had raged on Ferros for nearly a year between the Church of Manny and the Wyrd. Their agents, the Holy Liberators and the Fatespinners, fought for the hearts and minds of the people, pitting their ideals of freedom against each other. The Fatespinners preached the demise of the gods and the ability to bring about one’s own destiny over that chosen by the Seamstress. The Liberators preached that by joining with Manny, his spirit would help everyone overthrow the tyranny of the Wyrd. As with all holy wars, the mortals battled with no knowledge of the true games of the gods.

From Kal’renth came a dragonkin, Schrazon, to the Church’s headquarters to speak with Perilune Claire. While in the Abyss, Schrazon had come across one of the few safe havens in the infernal realm. There, he had received a vision of an axe, mighty and radiant, facing a triad of weapons: a sword of darkness, a staff of fire, and a wheel of lightning. Together they fought the axe and overcame it and once they did, they set about destroying a large tapestry. When he awoke, Schrazon prayed to Erick for guidance and, after defeating a small infinite swarm of demonflies, returned to seek out the axe. The Perilune listened to his story and explained that it represented the final battle. Should Manny fall, the Wyrd would set about destroying all of creation. That Schrazon had received this vision meant that the gods had chosen him to help Manny. Schrazon was unconvinced but upon her adivce, went to speak with Herald Frederick. While Frederick had not received word of this, upon Schrazon’s arrival, Frederick was suddenly possessed by a mighty Solar. Schrazon threw himself down before the power of goodness as it was proclaimed that he was to join the Exalted Dreadnaught in battle. With a crash of thunder, the angel and Schrazon were gone.

From the Astral Plane came an Unbodied. For centuries it had existed in the airy void as a small remnant of some psychic energy, occasionally feasting on vestiges of psionic energy found in gith corpses. Eventually it gained enough energy that it gained sentience. Now it recognized its hunger for what it was and began actively seeking out gith. At first it could only take the weakest of them, but over time it became skilled at disguising itself and hiding amongst them, silently killing in alleys and on voyages. For some time it went unnoticed, but went an astral ship went out for a routine voyage and never came back, it began to arouse suspicion. The ship was found, but the only body not present had been that of the Unbodied. Skilled psions and hunters among the gith recognized the psionic signatures and sent out a hunting party. Now the Unbodied found itself on the run. It found its way to Limbo where it hid from the gith in the formless chaos. But amidst chaos there is order and it was found by the githzerai almost immediately. These cousins of the githyanki saw a potential in the Unbodied and gave it strict training with their own psions. It proved to be very effective at blending in with both the societies of the githyanki and the illithids and consumed many of their psychic energies until one day a man dressed in robes with the bluest eyes arrived at the monastery. The gith treated this stranger with hostility at first, but with a glance they cowered and with a wave of his hand their powers failed them. Only when a monk greeted him as Lord Jomy Marquis did the rest of the monastery bow. The Unbodied had never seen such reverence or resentment before. The man asked for the Unbodied and beckoned it over. The Unbodied could not resist and for a time they spoke. Jomy told him of a great disturbance to the world and a chance to find meaning. If the Unbodied would help, Jomy would finally sate its hunger and it would find a greater purpose in life. The Unbodied looked back at the monks for encouragement but found only blank faces. This would be his choice. Jomy reached out his hand. The Unbodied took it and they vanished.

In the Arena, Manny waited. With him stood St. Alice and St. Marissa. Forbidden from the material plane, they had come to deliver champions from their gods to him. Behind St. Alice opened a gate and through it stepped a dragonkin, Schrazon, outfitted in truly epic-level gear. St. Marissa gestured and through a tear in reality came the Unbodied. The saints gave both of them their blessings and returned to their gods’ sides. For three days Manny tested these champions in combat. Having never been a very sophisticated man, he preferred a good fight to a cup of coffee. By the end, while they were not best of friends, they were close and stood together in spirit. It was time. Three months ago Lachesis had issued Manny a challenge, a final battle to decide the fate of the world to avoid a prolonged holy war. A month later Manny accepted. Lachesis had given him the key to a custom demiplane created just for this battle. Now the three comrades stood before the door. Manny held out his hand, and the door opened.

The battlefield consisted of a large tiled slab of stone suspended in space. Around them, galaxies turned and nebulae glowed. Above them turned a great wheel and the sigils of Manny and Lachesis were burned into the stone on either side of the area. The walls were transparent walls of force, literally the walls of reality. Manny, Schrazon, and the Unbodied entered from one side, Lachesis and Severus from the other. In the air appeared a mightily radiant Solar bearing the symbol of the Seamstress and carrying a book of Nephrale, claiming he was here to observe in the name of the Seamstress. There were no other pleasantries. Severus opened with the creation of a clone and an Anvil of the Gods and Lachesis with a technique that seemed to bend the reality around them, infusing the space around Manny with negative energy. Schrazon responded with a charge on Severus which he only barely survived. He retreated behind a prismatic wall while Manny charged Lachesis. But the deity of luck had himself on his side and only said, “Nope,” and disappeared in a golden flash.

Schrazon and the Unbodied concentrated their fire on Severus but his wall made it slightly difficult. That is, until Schrazon realized he could simply step through it and be mostly unharmed. Severus retreated again only to find himself the target of the Unbodied. In the confusion, it had effectively hasted itself so much that it was almost continuously manifesting powers. In its rush it targeted the Severus clones with a tear in reality. Doing something only Lachesis thought he could do, the Unbodied punched through the world to Limbo, the plane it was most familiar with. Despite it’s best efforts, though, Severus and Lachesis were able to impose their wills over the wild magic effects, but the holes in reality would only grow.

With the chaotic magic and the dragonkin threatening to overwhelm him, Severus teleported around, creating a prismatic sphere and another prismatic wall across the battlefield, sectioning bits off from each other. Schrazon was unimpressed and tried to follow, but failed and suddenly found himself transported to Ysgard. With a sigh, the Unbodied followed to try and fetch his comrade back. Meanwhile, Manny and Lachesis played a little game of cat and mouse. Lachesis let himself be struck a few times to see what Manny could do and then entrapped them both in a static planar field. Manny broke out of it, but Lachesis had already traveled across the field and released a sigil. The sign opened a gate and called Xark through. For all the rogue’s cockiness, though, it would turn out to be a poor choice of allies. He was the only one who couldn’t fly and in the meantime Manny had figured out how to get around Lachesis’ luck spells. He charged the Exarch and as predicted, the Exarch vanished in a golden flash. Manny simply smiled and readied his axe and when Lachesis reappeared, he struck.

Lachesis retreated into a ball of fire, but Manny followed him there. Flying out, he healed himself and Severus back to full, but the battle was not in their favor. Xark was constantly interrupted and attacked for no good reason by the Unbodied and Schrazon was making sure that Severus was kept on the run. Feeling quite upset at this, Lachesis lashed out with his staff saying, "I, who stand in the full light of the heavens, command thee, who opens the gates of hell. Come forth, divine lightning! This ends now! Indignation!!” An immense bolt of lightning struck the Unbodied, blinding and deafening it and nearly deafening Manny and Schrazon. They survived, of course, but the Unbodied could no longer see, only sense its surroundings with touchsight. Manny did not take well to this assault and charged, grappling Lachesis. Through various dispel attempts by both sides earlier, his protections were down and he found himself with a giant fist over his face. Unable to say, “Nope,” he did the only thing he could and cast dimension hop on Manny. His touch attack automatically succeeded and Manny found himself in the hole in reality torn by the Unbodied a minute earlier. Lachesis flew down and with his Planeslayer spells he sealed the portal, eternally imprisoning Manny in a space between planes.

But how can you seal away a god of freedom? Not even six seconds later, Manny willed himself free and the binding broke. In that move, he earned the name the Truly Free, for he could even be subject to the idea of confinement. From then on, he had Lachesis on the ropes.

Severus and Schrazon had been duking it out on the ground in the meanwhile. Xark came up to help, but Schrazon had had many battles of experience against clever devils like Xark and wasted no time knocking him down. Almost dead, Xark fell and bled, playing dead. On another soul it might have worked, it had worked, but this paladin had spent years facing cowards and knew Rule #2: Double-tap. Xark’s gambit failed and his key crest floated up. His death distracted Lachesis enough that Manny was able to get in a full-round of attacking, bringing the God of Fate and Freedom to near death. Close to death, his ultimate powers activated and he blasted Manny away from him, took Xark’s key crest, and delivered his speech:

“It cannot end like this, I will it not to! Too long have I suffered under the tyranny and illusion of the gods; first Elohim and then Nephrale, the gods are nothing but slavers trying to keep alive this failed experiment the Seamstress calls creation. Gods only have power through the faith and worship of mortals and yet they govern reality as if they were kings. This will not do. The Seamstress made the gods to fight the Chthonoi but I will destroy the gods and end creation. I will destroy the Chthonoi and remake the Chthon and the universe into one. One world where mortals will have the power to shape everything as they desire, and I will not let you stop me, Manny Kilore. Haha, the idea itself is ridiculous. How could you, you don’t even have a reason to stop me. How can someone with no resolve, no ambition defeat me? This is MY destiny and I WILL it so! Feel the power of my resolve!”

Lachesis raised his staff and his hands and as the Unbodied had, tore open a hole in reality to the hottest, darkest pits of the Abyss. The void began to suck in everything around it and Lachesis took the moment to planebend the area around him, greatly empowering spells like mage hand and telekinesis. There was nothing Schrazon could do except stay away from the hole. The Unbodied by now had expended most of its power but it spent the last of it on Severus. With his protection against energy drain and spell resistance down, he was infused with too much negative energy all at once and collapsed, dead.

Now it was just Manny and Lachesis. Manny stepped in, Lachesis said, “Nope.” Manny prepared to strike and in the void, Lachesis did the same. As he returned, Manny struck and Lachesis cast Indignation. The bolt of lightning hit the god and its force blinded and deafened him long enough for Lachesis to escape, but even that was short lived. Schrazon simply removed his blindness and deafness with his holy magic and the two of them converged on Lachesis. With one final casting of Dart’s Dodge he disappeared, returned, and said only, “I will not be killed by you.” A dark and corrputed flare burst on him, consuming his spirit and soul in fire.

Manny took his key crest and said, “I will work hard to build a world you would want.” The battle was over. The Solar closed his book with the symbol of Nephrale and under the sigil of the Seamstress proclaimed Manny the true god of Freedom!

Epilogue.

Across the world the heavens trembled. Whether it was night or day, the skies opened and the armies of heaven poured forth. Whether elf, human, or dwarf, all peoples cowered in awe. In the cities, beings of light and flame alighted on the temples to the gods and purged the corruption with holy fire. Across the land and the sea, great golden beasts and winged serpents of many colors pursued the corrupted and the vile. To all peoples appeared a mighty Solar bearing the symbol of the Seamstress. In her right hand she carried a sword and in her left a great horn, and when she blew the horn the earth shook and the seas trembled. Evil ones were smote in her gaze alone and even the righteous knelt in reverence. When her horn lowered all were silent. The winds and seas calmed and the sun and moons stood still in the sky. And then she spoke with a great voice and all heard:

Let it be known on all lands that the usurper, Lachesis, and his Ur-Lords have been defeated and balance has been restored. All recognize the Exalted Dreadnaught, Manny, the Truly Free, God of Liberation and Goodness!

At this she raised her sword and from it came a great flame, burning corruption in the air and restoring the skies to their proper appearance. In its wake was traced a great sigil of spark and ember, so great that none could see its entirety, though in it many saw the symbol of their god. Across the land, symbols of the Wyrd burned and the altars of the gods, burning with holy fire, were rebuilt and blessed. The people looked to the Fatespinners who now were powerless and brought them to death before the Holy Liberators. Crowds chanted to Manny and to their gods and banners once deemed heretical were raised above the temples again.

The Silver City, Ominia.

The host of fiends assaulting the city looked up to the angel and shielded their gaze. Waves of fire from the angel assaulted them but fell upon a great shield. Vespa’s power, even now granted them protection from the mighty goodness of the angel. In the sky the evil temptress in red fought with the angels. Her trident struck them down even as they rose back up. At the solar’s command they converged on Vespa at once, but with a mighty burst of Hellfire she struck them back. They fell among the infernal horde, their wings burning away in the vile heat of the Hellfire. “I will not give up so easily, angel. You hold the light of Elohim against the mere fire of Fallais, but now you shall feel MY power! Come forth, great devil of Hell, Duke of the Fourth, Belial! Burn these fools to the ground!”

With her trident she drew a circle and threw it at the city. Before her opened up a gate to Hell, dark and hot. Smoke and brimstone poured forth as Vespa laughed at her triumph, at her command of one of the mightiest evils. But when the smoke cleared, it was not Belial but a woman dressed in the dark red robes of Fallais with a trident of flame. “You!” Vespa shrieked. “But how? My calls come from me, not Fallais!”

“Sorry dear, but not even Lord Belial wants to help you after what you did to Lord Fallais.” Saint Delaquer smiled and shrugged. Vespa snarled and charged her, but Her Holiness vanished in a dark smoke. Quick as she could be, she turned and hurled her trident, but it veered away from the lady to a heavily armored man who sundered it with a single blow of his mighty flaming blade.

“You bring a weapon against the God of War?” Saint Luscan laughed. “She’s all yours, Kinover.”

A light shone from above and Vespa looked up as Saint Olxanis drove his shining blade down in a shower of light and steel. She growled and brought her arms up and blocked him in a shield of flame. “I am no minion of Fallais, you can’t touch me golden boy,” she smirked.

“Of course not, that wasn’t my job.”

“What ghk-!” A pair of lips on her neck and a hand through her chest. Vespa looked down at her heart and watched as Ligeria crushed it. Blood poured out as Vespa’s vision faded, her last thoughts filled with a man in white. “My…love.”

She fell, and so fled the armies of Hell.

The Grand Cathedral, Aventurine

“Are you sure, Perilune?”

“Thank you for your concern, Elone, but I was there when this began. Did you know we grew up together?” Claire smiled. “We were best friends once. I thought I could stop all of this from happening, but, well,” she waved her hand. Around them lay the broken bodies of angels where they had fallen out of the air.

“You were defeated once.”

“True, but I’m stronger now.”

“So is she.”

“Step aside, Sister.”

“Perilune, I cannot.” Elone raised her sword.

“Do you defy your Perilune?” Claire seemed almost amused. Elone nodded. “Your devotion is to be commended, Sister, but I do not have time for such devotion and I need you to return to Jik’ton.”

Elone shook her head. “Mother, no! Let me come with you!” She took a step forward.

“This is not your fight, Battlemaiden.” A voice as hard as steel and clear as crystal rang out from above. Elone looked up in awe upon the shining form of St. Alice. “Now go. Tell the High Fathers of Manny what you see.” Alice placed a hand upon Elone’s shoulder, teleporting her away.

In one moment she was facing the leaders of her church and then suddenly she hurtled through the freezing cold of teleportation. It lasted only a second and then she looked out from high upon a mountain. Below her stretched green fields and woods. She could see a road traveling through it from the mountains, but the landscape was of little importance right now. She needed to return to Claire’s side. She looked to the sky to find the sun, and stopped in shock. The sky began to darken as Sartra began to move into eclipse.

Being a moon goddess, Echoe has all manner of signs and omens associated with the various phases and behaviors of Sartra, but eclipses were the most ominous and the most powerful. When Sartra eclipsed the sun, it meant Echoe herself was going to touch the world. That would explain why Claire had been so insistent on going to Aventurine and so confident just moments ago. In panic, Elone turned to run down the road to the east but even in haste she would get nowhere. She was probably somewhere in the Malveyan Alps; Aventurine wasn’t even in sight and the sky was only getting darker. Gasping, she slowed and watched as Echoe’s veil fell dark upon the land. Farther and farther the shadow spread until Totality.

The sky was dark. Stars had begun to appear and farmers had lit torches in the distance. The sun was merely a thin ring of light around a black disk. She knew it was dangerous, but as she looked, she saw a flash of green light. It came streaking down from the sky to land beyond the horizon, but there was no doubt where it had fallen. For half a second she waited, and then a mighty fireball appeared over the horizon, green and gold. Elone fell to her knees and watched in shock as a great wave of green and gold swept over the land. As it approached it seemed to crest, as if it were washing up against the mountain. A great spray of verdant hues leapt straight into the sky several miles distant and hung there like a glistening curtain, slowly fading. The fireball over Aventurine dimmed as Totality ended. Slowly the sun was returned and Sarta moved on.

Elone fell to the ground and wept. For Aventurine. For Lyrise. For Claire. Of all the church, now only she remained as the last Battlemaiden.

Time passed but the road was silent. Looking down the mountain, Sister Elone rose and began walking back to Lyrise. She had to know what happened, and then she had to tell the world.

Miltia

A dark circle opened up into a gate above a plain. In the distance, a mountain stood with ruins glinting in the evening light. A dark figure fell from the gate, bound in glowing chains. They melded into his body as the gate closed. He tried to stand and stumbled, dropping a dark blue mask with a long beaked nose. White bands formed around his wrists and ankles and with a howl of pain, a glyph burned itself into his forehead. He writhed on the ground as the manacles sealed themselves, binding him to this plane. Their light faded, leaving white leather straps engraved with a single rune in gold.

The man lay on the ground for a minute before trying to stand again. He felt the straps tight around his wrists and ran a finger over the mark on his forehead. If he showed his face, everyone would know him and his crimes. Even here there was no refuge. He clenched his fists as dark flames surrounded him, threw his head back and cried to the heavens, “Carina!!”

Labrynthos, The Astral Plane

“Are you sure no one else has gone to look for it?”

“Absolutely. But they will. You need to hurry.”

“Meh, they can’t catch me. Alice and her posse have been chasing me across the Material Plane for years. I can stay ahead of them easily.”

“Are you certain you can find it?”

“Hey, are you doubting me? I am literally the best tracker in existence. Not even Ehlonna could find the trail and I even happen to have a lead. They’ll follow, but they’ll follow me, not the trail. Trust me, V.”

“I suppose so. You have the sending stone? You will only get one chance to call us and your powers won’t work once you get close.”

“Hey, don’t worry about me. You’ve got the harder job, convincing him to do something.”

“At least I know where he is.”

“Consider it a race. Can you convince him to help us before I find it?”

“Trust me. I think with Manny’s decision to join the Great Seal, we’ll be able to persuade him.”

Poison sucks!

The party made their way through the camp of devils up to the hill with the portal. After a nasty encounter with some ice devils, they finally arrived at the portal. It was fifteen feet tall and wide and radiated evil. Literally. It was orange-colored evil. Niachi looked around to notice a faint magic circle around it. So he did what anyone else would do and smudged it. The portal fuzzed and burst into flame. Cause it’s a portal to Hell. That’s what it does. Burn things. But the party did not realize that the Pit Fiend guarding the portal was still around. He attacked Niachi with his claws, wings, and terribly foul mouth. The cat jumped back in his invisibility, but the damage was done. The wound burned and festered. A glance showed the poison burning along his veins, slowly making its way to his heart. But he didn’t let that stop him. The party engaged the beast.

The pit fiend began by summoning a friend, a horned devil, but his mighty plans were quickly derailed by the ninjas. Invisible and ethereal, they damaged him tremendously and forced his retreat. His fearsome fireballs were useless against them. Sara summoned an astral construct to deal with the horned devil. It distracted the beast long enough for the ninjas to knock him out. Had Rom or Raniy been around, they might have informed the party that such a defeat was only temporary until it regenerated, but alas the party didn’t know. With the immediate threat down in 30 seconds, they began destroying the magic circle around the portal. It fizzled and fuzzed, but remained undamaged. They attempted to ask Raniy for help, but just as she felt like waking up, Niachi clutched his chest and fell over. He was dead. His soul went on to Savani’s rest.

Struck with grief, Sara and Titus pulled out Valorie’s folding boat and opened it up into a canoe. They packed their friends in, called Wilhelm to send a teleport, and began rowing up and away to watch the battle below. With the pit fiend gone, the forces on the south side of the city fractured into smaller factions. The infighting gave the defenders enough chance to push them back and gain a reprieve. While the devil leadership assembled on the hill to fight it out, the defenders rolled in their own siege weaponry: ballistas that fired some sort of magical explosives. Wherever the explosives landed was filled with a cloud of light and red fire and no demons or devils remained. It only took a few volleys to clear most of the south side. Filled with a measure of hope (as much as either of them could feel) for the city, they began to row away until a seductive voice stopped them.

It was Vespa. She flew there, facing them down in her barely-there armor, only this time upgraded with a fancy hooded robe. Despite it’s lack of obvious protection and her sultry voice, she struck a measure of terror and caution into Sara and Titus. She attempted to persuade them to join by offering their choice of plunder form the city below, particularly in the Staff of Alderac, but they remained firm. She shrugged and aimed her trident at them. They began to row faster. “Rowing away in a canoe? How brave,” Vespa taunted.

“We only have fucking two people!” Sara yelled. Titus nearly fell overboard laughing. Vespa was less amused and with a mutter cast Implosion. A bright burst of light shoved her away as Twilight Sparkle encapsulated the canoe with a golden sphere. She was joined by High Father Hirzon, Saint Amoss, and Herald Frederick. And they were angry. Vespa laughed and did her best to charm them, even offering a chance at the spanking of a lifetime, but Amoss was far too used to the ways of Manny and such subtlety went somewhat over her head. With a great whack, Frederick knocked the sphere away and the four of them joined battle in an epic cutscene.

Meanwhile, in the canoe, Twilight explained that if they wanted to close the portal, they’d have to return. There were a few ways to do it. The sacrifice of a pure, innocent life, a powerful casting of disjunction, or the destruction of an artifact like the Axalted or the Staff of Alderac would all do. Titus considered giving up William but Sara suggested that he might not be so pure and innocent, and Rom would never stand for such things. Fortunately, Twilight had it prepared. She handed Titus the Super Ultimate Twi-tastic Disjoiner 9382.11! The small ball had been enchanted to release a burst of magical energy combining a disjunction, dimensional anchor, and antimagic field to completely destroy the portal and all protections it might have. Due to the unusual combination of effects there, she warned it was particularly unstable and anything might set it off. Titus asked if it would destroy the other portals around the city but she said no, each portal was its own separate instance. Unless they were all close together on the Hell side, the Deluxe Sparkle-Cannon of Golden Justice Power Beam of Truth would only eliminate the one portal. But in order to destroy all those other portals, someone would have to go to the Hell side and activate it from there. It might be a one-way trip. Titus volunteered.

Twilight set them down near the portal. She gave them each a teleport tile to break in case of quick retreat and they prepared to face off against the pit fiend, who had clearly been healed up by his mistress. Titus ran for the back of the portal while Sara summoned an astral construct and tossed Really Interesting Name to it. The sword was very upset about the whole affair. The construct and the devil were evenly matched and struggled against the other while Titus jumped through the portal.

On the other side he found himself on a staging grounds. Five other portals surrounded the area. The one he’d come through and four others clearly led to the grounds around the Silver City, but the portal opposite him led to a garden. Through it he could see flowers, some graves, and a gazebo containing a well. It was very familiar. He went up to it and looked through. No one appeared to be there. Just a flower wouldn’t hurt. One flower from Lachesis’ demiplane would make him a better thief than either Hirzon or Xark. He dashed in, but as he tried to leave, his legs grew heavy and he fell to the ground. Behind him stood a man in white with a gold wheel above his head. The Exarch smiled upon poor Titus and allowed him to stand. He just wanted to have a talk. True, he could snap his fingers and force Titus’ cooperation, but he would really rather Titus just join of his own will. After all, as Exarch, Lachesis was the God of Fate and Freedom, the champion of choosing one’s own way. They spoke and Titus, realizing his plight, said yes, upon three conditions.

Lachesis laughed and agreed to his first and third demands easily but asked about the second. Titus backed up, not saying anything. Lachesis held up a hand and asked again, pointing out that Titus really didn’t have the leverage here. Sure, Lachesis would prefer a volunteer, but a conscript would do just as well. Titus said it would make the game more fair. The Exarch considered this for a moment, saying that he’d intended to fight Manny eventually, having it on the Material Plane wouldn’t really change that. And he doubted that Manny would do anything too foolish and risk losing worshipers in a deific battle. So he agreed to that as well. He reached out his hand and Titus tumbled backward through the portal, pushing the button on the Einstein-Rosen Disrupter 8294.293 of Awesomeness! Lachesis snapped his fingers, but as Titus felt his soul begin to warp, the bomb blew and shut the portal.

Landing on the other side, he ran across the dais as the other portal winked out. The blast wave was thinning as it reached his, but the portal was fuzzing up. Putting all he had into it, he made one last jump and came through just in time! Titus landed on the pit fiend, who threw him off, and took a moment to relax. Sara was having no such luck, however, as RLN and the construct were making no headway against the fiend. Even when Titus joined a moment later, it seemed as if the devil’s magical power would overcome them. Titus was out of ki points, but managed to get behind the devil when out of the sky fell a quiver of arrows at Sara’s feet. Five arrows made of a glowing light. Sara didn’t know what they were or where they came from, but picking them up she knew they were a gift from a friend.

She set the first to her bow and fired. It missed. She set the second and fired again, but the devil deflected it. And then she set the third and the magic of the others helped guide it true. When it struck, a sexy diva appeared and slapped the devil with the force of a magic anvil. Sara whooped and fired again. The sexy diva struck again and slapped the devil between its eyes and it fell to the ground, defeated. They quickly grabbed its loot bag and broke the teleportation tiles and vanished. In the sky, the three warriors fought Vespa to a standstill. As soon as the portals around the city began to vanish, Twilight reappeared with the boat and teleported them back home, leaving a bruised Vespa to watch as the Ominians quickly broke the siege and made short work of her army.

Back home, word reached the High Fathers of the Silver City’s victory. The Ominian Emperor extended a hand of alliance so long as the Resistance didn’t preach too much. Sara spoke to Twilight about the mysterious arrows and Twilight figured she could simulate them. She analyzed Titus’ corruption and found he was on the verge of falling. Even one more point of corruption would turn him into an Abomination. Niachi’s body was brought to Father Arroway, along with a significant sum of diamonds, but Father Arroway refused to help. Lachesis’ grip on the world made it too dangerous to resurrect anyone. He reminded Titus that’s what had caused his current situation. Going to another plane aside from the Slow Time plane would give them a pretty good chance of success, but to be certain in returning him to life, they would need to travel to the plane where Niachi’s soul rested. Neither of them knew where that might be, so they waited for Rom and Raniy to wake up, and waited to see what sort of revenge the Wyrd might try next.

Everyone failed the Listen check

Having retrieved the Key of Slow Time, Team RASN went home where Niachi pestered Twilight into upgrading his sword. Annoyed, she popped over into the slow-time plane, made it and popped back. She was ragged, haggard, her mane was a mess and her eyes were bulging. Her voice was starting to do the crazy thing as her eyes twitched. The party looked at her carefully. Slowly, Niachi reached a hand out. Slowly Twilight levitated the sword to him. Rom held his breath. Holo peeked out from behind a box. Titus turned around to check out someone’s butt. And then Niachi asked, “Did you make it Danciga?” Twilight paused her levitation amidst an audible snap! No one breathed.

TwilightwhirledtheswordaroundslammingitintoNiachisohardheflewbackintoRomandRaniyandtheyflewbackintoKadenandMittensandSaraandTitusandsomeothergirlthenshescoopedthemallupintotheairandthrewthemasfarasshecouldandastheyflewawaysheblastedthemwithateleporttowhoknowswherewithatremendousexplosionoflightsoundandcolor. Elone walked over to the purple unicorn and gave her a hug. No words, no nonsense, just a hug. Twilight let out a deep breath and collapsed into her arms, falling asleep immediately. She carried the unicorn up to her room and set her into bed. Hirzon followed her and pulled up a chair and a few good books and waited, reading and occasionally looking over at the poor mare. She needed some rest.

Meanwhile, the party experienced an unusually long time in the astral void of the teleport and introduced themselves to the new girl, a favored soul of Manny. As they were getting acquainted, the teleport popped them out above The Silver City. They fell toward it and slammed into an invisible wall and slowly slid downward. As they slid, making an obnoxious noise, they noticed the city was under siege by a legion of demons, devils, and antitheses. Defenders on the wall included clerics of Elohim, combining their power to blast the demons with pillars of light, and clerics of Fallais, banishing any outsider that got too far up the wall. As they slid, some paladin knocked them off with an arrow into a pile of imps, who died immediately upon their standing up. Bewildered, they cleared out the nobodies around them with a few waves of their hands and then fought off a few waves of stronger demons who had survived their arrival. Rom figured that somewhere nearby was likely to be a portal and a small command post, so he recommended they head that way. A small silver badge fell from the sky bearing the symbol of Elohim. Titus stuck it in his pocket without thinking since no one realized they were right next to the wall with defenders on it who might have tossed it to them.

But instead of going north along the wall or west to a field, both full of monsters to kill and XP to earn, the druid turned into an eagle and soared above the battlefield and pinpointed the portal and command post for this section. Their new favored soul friend cast wind walk upon them and they all traveled straight for the portal. At first they had planned to split the party like idiots, even though that always ends badly, but fortunately the command post wasn’t amenable to that. So they planned to all go in, but then stopped when they realized it was guarded by a pit fiend and all of his minions (since they hadn’t wandered through and killed them separately). They argued with me for a while, but eventually Manny himself came down and said that the whole battlefield was specifically laid out to provide them with an adventure and they finally agreed to go through the command post properly. They ran through the supplies, rummaging around and nearly dying to an unlucky phantasmal killer, but then rallied and killed everything.

Mirai

The next morning, Mirumoto went to meet Niachi underneath the cherry blossom tree. He brought along a guard and Holo, who brought Rom. Niachi and Titus were there, waiting. Mirumoto was skeptical of their intentions but other matters were clearly on his mind. He made his case short and succinct: return the Kako and take Holo and in return he’d sign the partnership with the Resistance. The group didn’t stick around to find out what was bothering him or what he’d need help with as Sara had just returned from seeing Walker. Walker’s spells had revealed that the wakizashi Kako was actually one-half of the Key of Slow Time. When Sara revealed this to Niachi at the negotiation, he attempted to force Holo to give the key to them. She was not impressed and it seemed like there would be a stand-off until The Seamstress showed up and had them make Sense Motive checks to realize that Holo was in complete agreement with them, she was just putting on a good show. Once that was taken care of and the Resistance agreement signed, Holo suggested they go out camping. Reluctantly they did.

Out there she explained some of the situation: The Kako had been entrusted to her by a friend and she was going to look after it. The other half was a katana in Niflheim, the city of the Dwarves in Ominia. The party had Walker independently verify this. Rom revealed that Holo was the original lycanthrope, which had given her the power over him, but the lack of faith from her ‘grandchildren’ had basically stripped her of most of her godly powers. She congratulated him for finally figuring it out and confirmed the story. Apparently she had done a stint as a harvest goddess over the past few centuries in lieu of her original role and had received a visit from Olim’s favored saint. With all the exposition she was willing to provide, the party had Twilight return them home, where they sold some stuff, had Twilight start working on Really Interesting Name, and followed Holo’s lead in some mid-game stretches.

Stretching complete, they teleported away to Ominia, but the dwarves wouldn’t let them in. Titus got around this with the dwarven national anthem. Impressed with his performance of “Diggy Diggy Hole” (and the encore rendition of “I’m Gonna Be”, an ever-popular dwarven favorite), the gatekeeper let him in, his boredom relieved. Inside, they had a quick drinking contest, which Holo lost quickly and Rom won, as usual. In the morning they began asking around about old shrines. Walker’s scrying had revealed that the katana was in a shrine with the symbols of a cross on a radiant burst (Elohim), a broken mountain, and twelve grains of sand. Four shrines were said to be in the city: one to Olim, Khazar, Moridin, and Kolad. Holo didn’t know much about them but was a bit hesitant about the last one. Niachi, recognizing the trope of Suspicious Hesitation, deduced that the shrine of Kolad was important somehow (they never figured out why).

The Shrine of Kolad was old and zen-like. It was small enough that it only had two rooms: one with a sand-garden and an ancient cleric’s regalia. It did have an old dwarf who assumed they were pilgrims of a sort and asked them about their purpose and their interpretation of a wall scroll before showing them into the altar. As predicted, the katana lay on the altar. Sara took the Kako from Holo and picked up the Mirai. With Past and Future, she attempted to activate the Key of Slow Time. It was amusing. She poked the swords together, crossed them, hopped, skipped, sliced the air, and even followed (poorly) Niachi in a niten kata (a choreographed practice set of moves with two swords). Nothing worked. Raniy wasn’t much help, only suggesting the activation of the key might be the same as the activation for any other magic item. They sighed and handed the Kako back to Holo for the moment, but then they noticed the old cleric had vanished.

Thinking perhaps he had just retired to the antechamber they left the altar and found him, but he quickly cast off his cloak and revealed himself as The Ultimate Hero of Space and Time!. He asked for the swords very nicely, but instead Sara and Holo tossed them to Niachi, who was proficient with the niten style. Battle started off well with Niachi dashing in and out, Sara powering up, and Titus jumping in for ethereal hits. Xark was unamused and tumbled over to Raniy. Catching her off-guard, he knocked her out with his two swords in one hasty set of attacks. Realizing the danger, Rom used his Prismatic Brooch, knowing he could be next. The spray caught Xark slightly off-guard. Not enough to hurt him, but at point-blank range it’s hard to dodge all the rays. He was hit by several and vanished, teleported to another plane. The party wasted no time in getting out and requested an emergency evac from Twilight.

With both swords, they sent a message to Walker, asking for the location of the Gate of Slow Time. He graciously offered to take them there, if they were willing to give him the Key. They refused, offering to grant him access, but that wasn’t enough. So going off of Niachi’s description of the place, Twilight plane-shifted them right over, putting them 90 miles away. With nothing else to do, they cast Find the Path and began flying on Valorie’s old flying boat. After a few hours of not seeing anything, they began to get suspicious. Raniy and Sara checked the path. It still led forward, but they realized they’d been going slightly to the left. Rom was fervent in his belief that the spell had to be giving them the right path while Niachi reasoned that a path going forward and slightly left would just take them in a large circle. Rom’s fervor didn’t let up for a while and so they spent another few hours traveling along their orbit with no sign of the Gate. Eventually, Titus got bored and turned the ship 90 degrees left. Rom was grumpy, but two hours later, they came within sight of the island. Somehow, Sara realized, the spell had been thrown off. Either the place couldn’t be found, or someone had interfered with the spell. Rom and Raniy weren’t sure how that could happen.

With abandon, Titus piloted the ship toward the island, but as they drew close, Sara and Niachi made out a figure standing there. A second later, it cast a green ray at the ship. The ray struck and while the ship resisted, it rocked and creaked with the damage. It was Walker, and he was trying to kill them! Titus turned the ship hard to port and slowed his descent a little (not nearly enough, but they wouldn’t die, probably). Walker sent a meteor swarm, a fireball, and a freezing spehere at the ship followed by one last disintegrate as it drew close. The thing broke apart and everyone fell. Niachi aimed for the wizard, Mirai and Kako in-hand. Walker tried a last-ditch lightning bolt at the ninja, but the power of the Zohar gave him a chance to dodge and he slammed into the wizard. Recovering quickly, he tumbled away and back, flipping the wizard up and stabbing the swords through his body into the Gate of Slow Time. The swords began to glow and the Gate opened…

Spice and Wolf

The party was joined by the druid Atkin and his tiger companion Mittens and became Team RASN (pronounced “raisin” cuz they be raisin’ the roof, son). Then Twilight teleported them to the place closest to the Key of Slow Time as she could: that one town in the Esterlands. There the party checked into the Brown-Fourmen hotel and asked around for the local wizard or sage. They were directed to a certain Walker, but were informed by the townspeople that he was out of town. Upon inspection of his house, Rom and Sara confirmed his out-of-town status. Niachi was less than impressed and used his new shadow walk spell to inspect the house. Sure enough it was present in the shadow plane (which was having some strange weather) and well warded. So he knocked. A magic mouth appeared and took a message. When he told the others, they felt silly and did the same.

In the meantime, the party went to look at the local temples of Lachesis. At the first one they visited, they encountered a friendly Fatespinner and a strange ranger with corrupted skin. The Fatespinner introduced himself and then Raniy touched his soul just long enough for Rom to punch his head off. The ranger attempted to flee but his elven ancestry doomed him to failure. He was briefly imprisoned in a coccoon and surrounded, but barely escaped through a fortunate tree stride. Niachi knocked over a font of baptismal corruption while Sara and the others gave chase. As they ran through the streets, they were stymied by a dispute between a peddler with a cart and an old woman in a crimson cloak. Rom resolved the dispute while Sara and Atkin took wing and flew after the ranger. They encountered him in the forest and trapped him in a reverse gravity field. He was dead within seconds.

A few days later Niachi received a message from Walker, asking to meet. He was very impressed with the ninja’s shadow walking skills and took him and Atkin on a short visit to the Astral Plane to explain the Key of Slow Time. He showed them a great door, fancy and wondrous and white. He said it was a portal to a plane where time flowed slower than normal, a boon to any crafter of magical items. Whoever holds the key can open the portal and access the plane, and once in, they can determine who is allowed in and from where. Since the plane had been accessible in the past, Walker assumed that they had been very generous but had probably hidden the key. That’s why, when Zerstorung happened and Lachesis began to isolate the material plane, the connection was shut. So now the key is the only way in, but the key is lost. Walker also said the dwarves might once have known about it, but such was only legend.

They returned to the material plane to inform the others. To scry out the key, Walker used a piece of planar wall, a powerful spell additive, and very shiny. The scrying revealed a cart full of goods, a peddler, and a young woman inside the city. Rom realized a moment later that it was the same cart he had seen a few days ago! The party dashed off. When they arrived, they worked with quiet efficiency. Atkin distracted the peddler, looking through his furs and armor for anything that would be interesting to buy. Rom spoke to the girl, who introduced herself as Holo. She seemed to recognize him and he felt strangely cautious around her, but couldn’t figure out why. Niachi noticed something was up and cooked up a plan with Sara. As he took a turn talking to Holo, Sara used her psionics to pull one of the cart wheels out of place, very sneakily. Holo fell and Niachi caught her, feeling that she carried some sort of case beneath her clothing and also concealed a tail. She felt somewhat indignant and demanded that Lawrence, the peddler, take her away to meet with the Merchant’s Guild. Raniy fixed the wheel for them and they took off quickly. As they left, Rom chased them to ask Holo something, but she turned and told him to STAY. The order shook him to his inner wolf and he stopped, confused. Niachi and him realized that the strange thing about her, was that she smelled like Rom.

Having tagged the pair as she had tagged the ranger, Sara tracked Holo and Lawrence to a large house bearing a chrysanthemum. A few questions told them that this house belonged to Mirumoto Rai, the chief of guards of the town and a once-friend of Manny (and Severus, but that was long ago). So they waited until it was night, and then snuck in. Niachi took Mittens to speak with Mirumoto. They woke him gently and explained they were from the Resistance of Manny. Mirumoto remembered the barbarian, but asked for a demonstration of trust before he sided with them. He instructed Niachi to meet him with one party member under a certain sakura tree at 11:30 the next morning, and he would then arrive with one of his guards. If Niachi kept him alive and did as instructed, then they would talk. Niachi agreed and began to keep watch.

Sara and Atkin followed the tag to Holo’s bedroom. Inside, Sara began to search for the Key. She didn’t know what it would be like, but under Holo’s clothing she found a very elaborate wakizashi, barely magical. She took it but wasn’t sure if Holo had decided to sleep with the key or not. Via Mittens, they sent for Niachi. He arrived and felt around but didn’t find anything. Not wanting to miss anything, he pulled down the covers and realized that Holo didn’t prefer pajamas. He tried to put the covers back up but it was too late, she awoke. Holo howled.

The howl of Holo is not one that can be ignored by any wolf, dog, or lycanthrope. Rom felt a call to come, an instinctive response of the wolf inside him and dashed up the stairs. Sara ran into him on her way out, panicking, but she didn’t say much. Niachi, Atkin, and Mittens all jumped out the window and when Rom arrived upstairs he was met with a confused Lawrence, some guards, a suspicious Mirumoto and a very grumpy Holo. The guards looked to give him a hard time, but Holo took charge and demanded that he bring his friends back. He resisted enough to give them warning to escape and returned to her, lying that they got away. Grumpy, she ordered him to stay with her and pointed to a spot on the floor. Saying he’d be more comfortable as a dog she attempted to force him to change, but his sanctified nature and years of training as a paladin allowed him to resist. Holo continued to push but he explained that he couldn’t remain in his form for long and she relented.

In night the Dog sleeps,
but at sakura’s morning,
the Cat meets the Sword.

Yasuo's Destruction

The day was set, the preparations complete for the attack. The local resistance of Bluesky had done some reconnaissance on the new temples and divined their purpose. Severus was planning a special ritual in the heart of Bluesky City to power up the Antitheses of the world. The ritual was to be conducted at the main temple and spread across Ferros via the use of very large emanation stones. Such epic magic, however, would be too much for one stone to handle, so smaller conduits were set up across the city. Destroy the stones and you would stop the ritual, or at least weaken it. General Beatrix had originally planned on attacking the zorite crystals during their transport from the mines, but with the increase in security she didn’t think it would be wise. The crystals were now being transported in cages of zorite steel and guarded by Wolfrau. When Severus was ready to start the ritual, the zorite steel cages would be released at the same time by the guards at each temple site. Any disruptions and the guards wouldn’t release the casings, preventing the ritual and letting Severus know something was happening. So Beatrix planned to attack all five sites at once.

Each one of Team RYSN would take a site, assisted by a friend or cohort. They decided where to go, but at the last minute, Yasuoi decided to split from his cohort, Quin, and stay with Titus. Niachi attacked with Sister Elone, Sara’phiem partnered with Brother Thom, and of course Rom stuck with Raniy. They would have one minute, and no way to communicate with each other.

Immediately most of them got off to a bad start. Raniy attempted to shatter the crystal, only to discover that as an emanation stone, it emanated the spell in a much more powerful manner across the entire temple, nearly destroying the building. Sara’phiem and Niachi learned this in the first few rounds as well, much to their chagrin. Quin had known this might happen and warned Yasuo ahead of time, but each group soon found themselves needing to use this property to their advantage as best as they could. It never worked. Raniy tried to paralyze the crystal, thinking a powerful spell would destroy it, but it only paralyzed her. Thom tried flamestrike and Sara tried entangle to slow down their monk and Wolfrau, but the one simply avoided it and the other absorbed it. Niachi attempted to use an unfinished spell to send the crystal to the shadow plane, but it blinded or hurt everyone in the temple. Yasuo deliberately used it to try and damage the golems at his site, which was very effective but hurt him just as much. Despite the bungling, they seemed to do well for the first round or two, but then things began to go wrong.

Rom and Raniy were slowed down by their enemies and Raniy’s spellcasting. Yasuo and Titus were sharply debuffed by a sorcerer casting the Hilbert Effect. Beatrix left Quin to draw off some reinforcements from General Ephraim and Quin was then attacked by Nathan Fillion, Beatrix’s second-in-command. Sara and Thom struggled to deal damage to the golems, Wolfrau, and crystal, all of which were largely impervious to their magic. The only one without any problems seemed to be Niachi as he bounced around the battlefield in his dervish dance. Despite his early playfulness and testing of the crystal, as his minute passed he became serious and used Really Interesting Name to make short work of it. He was the first to destroy his crystal.

Rom and Raniy succeeded next. Once they realized magic was not the way to go, Rom simply hit it with his claws. He was nearly carried off by the golem, but a Holy Anvil stopped it. After a tense battle with Nathan, Quin knocked him out and destroyed her crystal in a few hits. Time ticked by and Sara and Titus still hadn’t destroyed either of their crystals. With seconds left, Sara used all her mental strength to seal off the enemies behind an ectoplasmic barrier, toss some bombs at the crystal, and have Thom call down one last flamestrike to ignite them, blowing it up spectacularly. But Titus and Yasuo couldn’t get it done. Once they were forced into the material plane in real bodies, the stone golems had kept Titus on the ropes by grabbing him. He escaped, only to be grabbed again. While he was distracted, Yasuo kept dealing with small punches to his armor by a hit-and-run monk while also trying to damage the golems by using crystal shard on the zorite. It worked, but badly hurt himself in the process and missed the monk. This left an opening for the monk to knock him out with one more punch. The monk made ready to finish him, but Titus knocked him out in return, intending to capture him for interrogation. He managed to revive Yasuo just enough, but their time was running out. The ritual was almost complete. With nothing else to try, Yasuo put his final efforts into a disintegrate, hoping that the raw power of destruction would be enough to stop the crystal. Knowing it would kill him.

From across the city, almost everyone could see the sudden greenish-black sphere of destruction engulf the city. The beams of destruction shot forth in every direction from the zorite, creating a massive crater a thousand feet across and half as deep. Somehow Titus resisted the raw power and the fall should have killed him, but he woke up moments later feeling nothing but pain. His legs were shattered and useless, his arm twisted backward unnaturally. Above him, the crystal remained, floating in the center of the complete destruction. Above the city a thin beam shot forth into the sky, sending out a single ripple of power. The ritual was successful, but had been incredibly weakened. The Wyrd would not gain the strength they had thought.

After the battle everyone returned to the resistance’s headquarters to meet with Beatrix and report. Yasuo, Quin, and Titus were late, but something about the attack had bothered Rom and Sara. Listening to each other’s notes, they realized that each of them had had different enemies. Each had been optimized against them. Somehow they had been spied upon and their plans leaked to the Monks. They suspected either a powerful scrying or a mole and made preparations to interrogate the resistance captains. As Raniy meditated to reassign spells, Quin returned with the news: Yasuo had died trying to destroy his crystal, and Titus was back in Jik’ton for healing. Her report strongly implicated Nathan Fillion, who had disappeared after her fight and had reappeared briefly at Beatrix’s HQ to try and through suspicion off. Not certain, Raniy, Rom, and Sara interrogated the resistance captains, who all appeared to be clean. They also said it was probably Nathan, though none of them actually knew anything. With this in hand, the party reported to Beatrix, who was stricken with grief over the destruction, failure, and betrayal. She took it very personally and swiftly took them to the palace.

Expecting a climactic fight with Nathan Fillion and General Ephraim, the party geared up. Titus had returned with a fresh pair of legs from Father Arroway and Raniy prominenced everyone. Beatrix led them into the heart of the palace, to the Royal Chambers. Outside stood a man in heavy ornamental armor and cape wielding a mighty spear: General Ephraim. He advanced on them and demanded to know their purpose. And when they answered, he lifted his spear…and gave Beatrix a hug, glad to see her safe after Yasuo’s Destruction. The party was confused. He led them into the chambers where they met his sister General Eirika and Princess Tamra.

Tamra spoke largely with Titus, swiftly and decisively negotiating a deal between Manscell and the Resistance of Manny. The Resistance would provide Manscell with gold and resources and would rebuild Prime Meridian’s trade routes as well as manpower to take back the mines and other strategic locations. In return, Manscell would assist in recruiting for the Resistance, supply valuable materials, allow them to recruit Father Iomhar, and promote the worship of Manny. He was a bit reluctant at first until she reminded him that he was currently in the same room as the Four Generals of Manscell. This confused the party since only Generals Ephraim, Eirika, and Beatrix were present. Three times they asked, “What happened to the fourth general?” and three times the generals responded “We are the Four Generals of Manscell.” The party was very confused.

With all the excitement concluded, most of the party returned to Jik’ton. Titus stuck around to torture and interrogate a monk, who maybe revealed the locations of the other corrupted monks, though he also displayed a greater shout power and killed himself. Rom and Sara stuck around to look for the special piece of information about the Wyrd. Beatrix knew something but wouldn’t say directly, just telling Sara to go to the “Church Services” of Lachesis. Rom objected so they sat on a fountain and talked.

Sara sat through the church services. At first it was all songs and praise, but then the preaching began. The pastor talked about how Lachesis freed the soul from the oppression of the gods. He said the gods were weak, that they were the gods of one idea at most. How strong could a god of the mountains be if he couldn’t also be the god of the forests? How powerful could the god of the Ominians be if other gods still opposed him? The Seamstress, he said, was the worst, writing down and weaving everyone’s fates into the Loom. How could you have choice if she decided everything? Lachesis. Lachesis is the God of Fate and Freedom, of one’s own wyrd (a sort of personal destiny, fate, or purpose, supposedly self-made). And while he gave his blessings (the pastor indicated the corrupted among the churchmembers) his true converts were the Fatespinners. A group of people stood up, all wearing a similar outfit: a brown cloak with the symbol of the Wyrd made into a wheel on it and each held a holy symbol made into a spinner. Sara had seen them earlier and watched them. Unlike everyone else, who were mostly there by force, these five had seemed sincere in their worship, and now were proud Lachesis-ites it seemed. The pastor said that these Fatespinners could make their own destiny and that anyone could be like them, just speak with them afterward.

Sara stuck around after the service and indeed someone showed some genuine interest. Most of the conversation was drivel, but before Sara left, the Fatespinner did something. He asked the nearby Monk to hit him and the Monk did so, very successfully. Then Fatespinner put his hand on his holy spinner and flicked it and said to try again. The Monk struck and for a moment he hit, but in the instant that he did, the world flickered and all of a sudden the Monk’s fist sailed right past the Fatespinner’s nose. He had made the Monk miss! No one else seemed to notice the flicker, so Sara returned to Beatrix and asked about them.

Beatrix said the Fatespinners had appeared a month-and-a-half ago. She didn’t know where they came from, but somehow they were different. They were charismatic and sincere in their worship. Sure the corrupted worshiped the Wyrd, but how much worship could they really give as Antitheses? She reckoned that somehow the Fatespinners were the real followers of Lachesis, and were really drawing power from him. That’s when Rom informed her of Manny’s recent ascension (which Titus had only just learned of during his quick hospital visit). She wondered if somehow Lachesis had accomplished something similar, but seeing as he was still alive they weren’t sure how. Rom attempted to explain that Lachesis’ goal was to break the Great Seal (though he avoided explaining it to her), but she just asked why bother. If the Seal held back the gods, wouldn’t it be protecting Lachesis? Breaking it would let them attack him and he probably wouldn’t stand up very well to that. Instead she asked them what the Wyrd were trying to do and why they weren’t interested in Bluesky City very much. But neither Sara nor Rom had answers, and so she sent them home and told them to speak with their spiritual advisers.

Now the party must decide: investigate the Fatespinners in Bluesky City or go to the Esterlands to search for information about the Key of Slow Time?

A Divine Herald!

Resistance of Manny HQ, City of jik’ton, Kal’renth
Thursday, about 2:00…

“And this is the armory,” Brother Thom was saying. “You’ll get a locker for your stuff. We can give you a lock, but everyone knows the combination anyway, it’s just two smashes and a good hard tug.” He held up a lock that had seen much better days. The newbie nodded, something told him that Manny approved. “If you really want something, go get a lock from the city, but it’ll have to come out of your pay. Father Wilhelm is very strict on spending.”

Brother Fred understood. Money was hard to come by these days, economies were completely isolated. Lately the city had been offering incentives for workers and youngsters to go farm. The chromatic citizens had brought up the old debate about raiding before city council. It was an interesting time, Fred thought, but such concerns were beneath him now. Ever since he had felt the blessings of Manny come to him after that sermon in Bluesky, he had a sense that his purpose involved less accounting and more smashing (and occasional rage-accounting, a skill probably unique to Brother Fred). To that end, he had been given an axe upon arrival. He took another look at it reverently as Brother Thom went on about the other recruits. It wasn’t a greataxe, or even a very-good-axe. It was the sort of axe your grandpa might have, only a bit thicker and more suited for chopping heads. And it bore the symbol of the Blessed Manny, the Exalted Dreadnaught, the Barbarian of Light and Freedom, He Who Smashes Bad Guys, Eater of Pies, etc.

“Um, excuse me, Brother Thom?” he interrupted. Thom raised an eyebrow. “Well, when do we get to the training?”

“Oh, the fighting starts tomorrow morning. Someone will grab you from your bed in the early morning and throw you out into the training ground. Then they’ll grab a weapon and attack. You’ll have a shield somewhere, if you can get to it, but you’ll probably die once or twice until you can figure out the rage.”

“Die?” Brother Fred gulped, confused and scared.

“Yup! I mean, it’s not real death, but it’s as close as you’ll get before you actually kick the bucket.” He laughed at the expression on Fred’s face. “Hey, I went through it, too. Hurts like hell and real scary, but don’t worry. See that weapon you’re holding? All the weapons here have the mark of Manny on them. As long as you use one of those in HQ, they can’t actually kill or main you. They still hurt, you’ll still bleed and fall unconscious as if you died, but Father Wilhelm arranged for a special enchantment on them.”

“What happens if someone…” Fred drew a line across his neck. Brother Thom smiled. It was a good smile, the worst kind. The kind someone gives you right before- squelch!

Brother Fred hit the ground with a wet smack. He couldn’t move, couldn’t feel anything, couldn’t breathe. Above him Thom smiled and the world went dark. And then all of a sudden he felt a punch in his lungs. He opened his eyes and his vision blurred, then cleared, and he began coughing. Blood, there was a lot of blood. He felt his neck. Oh good, his head was still attached. There was blood there, and maybe even a scar, but then all of a sudden he felt a wave of warmth from his hand. He didn’t even register he was mumbling something. He could feel his wound closing and could see a faint yellow glow from his hand. His breathing cleared and he sat up, still taking stock of the world.

“Magic? That’s weird,” he murmured. He reached a hand down and helped Fred stand up. “There, easy now. Your first is always the hardest, but you’ll get used to the disorientation after a little while.”

“Did you just…why?”

“We’re the Church of Manny. We smash first, talk later. At least that’s what they teach us. And really how else should I have explained how it all works? We’ve got healing available after each round if you need it. Some folks are more resistant than others.”

“But why this? I thought you’d use training weapons like sticks or something?”

“Because the Wyrd will never use a training stick on you.”

Fred thought about this for a moment. “So we dance with death now, so that we’re not afraid of it in a real fight.”

“Yeah, basically.”

Fred nodded. It kinda made sense. Kinda. He really felt like he needed some time to meditate and pray. “What about time to pray?”

“Well, there are vespers before breakfast and again before bed, if that’s what you mean.”

“Not really. When do I have time to think on Manny’s teachings?”

“His teachings are battle. How can you think on them without fighting?”

“I just…feel like I need some time to prepare myself each day, that’s all.” Fred stared at his holy symbol.

“Hmm, maybe we’d better have you talk to Father Arroway.” Thom looked out at the training grounds. Sister Elone was fencing with another recruit. The newbie had already lost a lung and taken a hit to his shoulder. That he was still up was a sign of progress. “I think you’re going to need a different training regimen than the barbarians. Come, let’s go see him.”

Brother Thom led Fred out into the sun. Father Arroway’s quarters were on the other side of the compound. they walked along the outer edge of the arena, staying away from the real fights. Suddenly, Fred stopped and looked to the sky. “What is it?” Thom asked. “The sirens would be blaring if Sid was attacking.”

“It’s not that. He is sending a messenger.” Fred stepped out into the arena holding out his holy symbol. It was beginning to glow. Thom watched as Fred walked toward the center, not even seeming to be aware of the training battles around him. The glow was spreading from his symbol across his body. Fighters who turned to strike him for getting in the way, saw the light in his eyes and backed away in awe. “He is coming, I need to let him in… He is coming, I need to let him in…” Fred repeated.

Fred had stopped and stared into the sky, glowing with power and staring at the sky. By now most of the arena was watching him. Sister Elone’s opponent had done well, but turned his head to look at Fred and let his guard down. A quick stab through the heart finished him and Sister Elone took a moment to look. “By the heavens,” she whispered. “Get out of the way! Move away from him!” She ran over, yelling at the slowpokes. “Hey, kid, can you hear me?”

Fred looked down at her, awe and worry on his face. “How do I let him in?”

“Sister Elone!” Thom ran over. “Do you know what it is?”

“It’s a messenger, an angel from the gods.” She took Fred’s hands in hers. “Go fetch the High Fathers.”

“All of them? But I-”

“Yes, Thom! All of them, quickly. They’ll come.” She glared at him and he ran off. Then she looked back at Fred. The power was building up and forming wings of light on his back. “Can you hear me, brother?” Fred nodded. “Good then listen to me. I will guide you.” She knelt down, pulling him with her. The holy symbol of Manny held up in their hands white-hot, but not burning them. “Repeat after me:” She began to pray in Celestial, a simple prayer inviting the angel inside. Together they chanted, and the light around Fred flowed up into the air forming a magic circle above them. Blessed Manny, Echoe, gods, Elone thought, give Thom speed. I can’t complete the ritual, this needs a real cleric.

As if he had heard her quiet prayer, Fathers Arroway and Hirzon arrived. Hirzon barked orders to the cadets to clear the area. Amoss and Lomasi flew in a moment later. Father Arroway understood immediately and called for Perilune Clair to be summoned. He walked over and placed his hands on the holy symbol and chanted a new prayer. The light scribed his words in the circle and a beam shot forth to the sky, reaching above the shield to scribe another circle.

“My, my, is that a summoning circle?” Wilhelm commented, ever casual. He had joined them with Clair.

“Almost, Sir Chaoite,” she replied. “It is a calling and it is only used to call forth celestial beings. In this case, I would guess someone wants to visit and your shield is in the way.”

“Will this ritual allow them in?” Hirzon asked.

“Not exactly,” she pointed up. “It could plane shift up there, but in this case, we’re giving it a conduit, calling it here instead.” Hirzon gave her a blank stare. “It can’t come and go as it pleases.” He relaxed, as much as he ever did.

With a final prayer, Arroway lifted his hands and completed the spell. A burst of holy power shot up the beam to the circle in the sky. It shone and four wings manifested around a ball of light. “Sister Elone,” he said, “stand down. The holy one has chosen a host.” Elone looked up at him a little surprised and then over to Clair. The Perilune nodded and she stood and stepped back. Above them, the ball of light and wings flew down the pillar of light and into Fred. He gave a cry and floated into the air. The wings enveloped him and with a mighty gust of air they unfolded to reveal a great and powerful angel, a Solar. Everyone knelt.

“Rise and hear ye, mortals, my proclamation of the ascent and true divinity of Manny Kilore, the Exalted Dreadnaught! From the plane of Arborea he rules with Justice and Freedom. He protects the Court of Stars and crushes tyranny and before him no evil stands. He of the mighty axe commands me to inform you, his church, of his teachings. Know that only those whom he has commanded me to speak to shall hear my words.

The Blessed Manny Kilore has ascended to godhood because of the work that you, his church, has so faithfully carried out. He commands you to continue spreading his word that his power might grow and he might stand ever more radiantly against the evil of Lachesis and the Wyrd. He commands that you hold no ill will toward other gods. As a god, the Blessed Manny chooses to abide by the Divine Contract for now as the vile Lachesis holds sway over the paths between your plane and the planes of the Wheel. Thus he has designated, through me, this mortal to be his herald. Let it be known that this mortal, this Brother Fred, is Manny’s first true cleric. Speaking to him is as speaking to me, and speaking to me is to speak to the Great Barbarian. Should he wish to command you, it will be through me and through this mortal. Treat him with respect, but do not soften his skin or dull his edge. Prepare for war with the Wyrd as the Blessed Manny labors in his mighty forge and trains his army and know that to fall in battle will be to join him in his ranks.

Hear me, mortals, for the Exalted Dreadnaught blesses you. May you go forth and smash all that is vile and may you spread the word of Manny, that his power might shine ever brighter against tyranny and corruption!"

The wings closed about the solar and a powerful gust of wind blew forth, knocking some to the ground. They opened to reveal Fred, floating amidst the bright heavenly light. With a flash the light and wings rose swiftly up the pillar to the calling circle in the air. There they burst in a shower of feathers and Fred’s feet touched the ground, the glow fading from his eyes. He looked around, confused. Father Arroway put an arm around his shoulders. “There, easy now. The first time’s a bit rough.”

“What? What was all that?” Fred looked around at the confusion. “What, why are you all staring at me?”

Arroway laughed. “Not everyone understands Celestial like you do, Brother.” Fred blinked a bit and then blushed. He reached up to scratch the back of his head and jumped.

“What? What’s this!” He looked to the left and tried to pull his hair around to the front, pulling out a feather instead.

Amoss smiled and walked over to him, matching his height. “Hey, don’t worry. You’ve got some feathers now, griffon ones it looks like. Here, like this.” She turned around and morphed her hair to match so he could see what everyone else was staring at. On the back of his head, his hair, already brown, now gave way to the large brown feathers of a griffon. “It’s alright,” she said, smiling. “The Blessed Manny will look out for you. Welcome, Herald Frederick, to the Church of Manny.”

General Beatrix

After an unproductive attack on the temple construction, Team RYSN wandered the streets empty-handed, looking for clues. Rom caught sight of a woman in a crimson mantle with a strange brooch and began stalking her while Niachi and Sara’phiem followed a local pickpocket who had been signaling them in the marketplace. He led them to a basement where they were introduced to a local resistance movement. Their leader, General Beatrix was away on reconnaissance, but one of their captains showed them around town. He introduced himself as Nathan Fillion, a monk in the church of Olim who wasn’t corrupted. He explained that Team RYSN had caused significant problems with their attack last week, but was willing to help them make up for it.

Around the town, he explained, the Monks have been constructing six temples. There are five smaller ones and then main temple atop the city. Each temple has a receptacle for a large object, and so far intel from the mines suggests that the Monks intend to place large zorite crystals in each one. For what, Nathan wasn’t sure, but he led Niachi and Sara around town to examine them. While out, Sara took notice of a strangely placed rose in a flower pot. Nathan explained that it symbolized a safe-house for the resistance. Meanwhile, Rom stalked the lady int he crimson cloak and asked her where she had found it. She said it came from a peddler from the south. He didn’t quite believe her, but it seemed a sensible explanation so he apologized for bothering her. As she walked off he noticed she was mildly evil and so he took sight note of where she lived.

Nathan told the other two that General Beatrix would be in touch with them in a few days, so they filled the remaining time in their own ways: Rom by preaching the valor of Manny, Niachi by making a new spell, and Sara by working on bombs (she’s a little rusty, cut her some slack). A few days later another thief appeared and asked them to come meet the General. They followed him to a wealthy house in one of the upper rings. There General Beatrix introduced herself, saying she had been looking forward to meeting the group for some time. She was a lovely woman with long hair and an enigmatic mask and called herself a ki warlord and one of the Four Generals of the Royal Army of Manscell. The group asked her about the Royal Palace and why it had been so well guarded. She said she wasn’t sure what had happened to the royal family, but the palace was guarded by General Ephraim, a skilled man who wields a lance and specializes in fighting sword-wielders. While not her better, the two of them have been evenly matched so far, keeping her from retaking the city. With that settled, she explained the plan.

Apparently the Monks were planning some sort of ritual in five days’ time. They’d been using the local mining and construction golems to transport materials. The resistance had been planning on interrupting the caravans, but since Yasuo led the attack on the temple last week, security has been increased significantly. In return for helping to stop the Monks, she promised Team RYSN that she would hand over the cleric of Olim they were looking for. The team agreed and began planning their attack. Niachi wondered about simply overloading the zorite with excess magic, but Beatrix reported that new intel suggested Wolfrau had arrived to help guard the crystals. Unable to take out the caravans she suggested they try a simultaneous strike on all five locations. Once destroyed, the large crystal, guessed to be a giant emanation stone, would explode from all the magic pumped through it.

Each member of the team will lead a small force on one of the five smaller temples with the assistance of one cohort (or cohort-level NPC). You may double up on one, but you will have to send extra forces to the other. To help you, you have the assistance of General Beatrix, a ki warlord and powerful fighter, Nathan Fillion, Sister Elone (lv. 14 Paladin), and Brother Thom (lv. 12 Cleric of Manny). Each group will also get four lv. 7 Fighters or Rogues. Each of you gets to determine your team. We will not have the next session until everyone can be present.

Monks and Golems

With Valorie safely captured and contained within the Resistance HQ, Twilight debriefed Team RYSN on her status. She wasn’t sure if Valorie could be restored, but research would require carinite and captive antitheses. The team agreed to get on that as soon as never and, ignoring the boon of an item from the dragons, they left for Bluesky City. Upon arrival they concealed themselves and set about gathering information. Niachi and Rom learned that since Zerstorung the clerics of Olim had become a mysterious group known only as The Monks. The Monks ruled the city now, but aside from commandeering the local construction golems, the city had been mostly left alone. Guards were posted, of course, but most of them appeared to be un-corrupted. The feel of the city was remarkably more relaxed than Aventurine had been.

Yasuo spent his time interrogating a homeless person. Aside from several strange things regarding his grandmother, he learned that The Monks were building a temple on top of the mountainous city (as did Niachi). Yasuo went to investigate. Instead of gathering any information, he simply looked around for the foreman, a monk on a ledge, and attempted to push him off. The monk kicked him away instead. They had a short battle and while Yasuo defeated the Monk, the local golems came to his aid and chased the psion away (due to their natural invulnerability to spells and powers). He returned with little to show for his efforts, but it was good exercise. He also introduced the party to his thrall, whom they proceeded to ignore.

With nothing else to go on, the party assaulted the temple. They beat up some misplaced battlemaidens and some golems and obtained a small amount of loot. The Monk from before was not present.

Valorie Returns!

“Attack on Jik’Ton! All hands to battle stations! All militia members take up arms! Non-defenders shelter in place or make way to the nearest temples. All kin to report to temples, Gynari and mortal casters to report to Resistance of Manny HQ! … Repeat, attack on Jik’ton!…”

The sirens wailed and the bells rang. Every man and many women took up arms, spellbooks, and wands and took to the streets. The half-dragons took to the air to coordinate the draconic in clearing the streets. Overhead, an enormous sapphire dragon flew and bellowed a rallying cry. From around the city dragons and half-dragons of all colors flew to join him. The Pendragon, commander of the defense of Jik’ton, quickly took a position for himself high above the city, a little ways outside. From there he ordered the flying kin into battle formation. The flightless kin were assigned to valuable targets in the city: city hall, the harbor, and the temples. Not that the temples needed much defense, but they would need time to situate themselves. The citizens were to shelter in the temples of Savannah, Sarah, and Paijara while the followers of Caleb and Erick mobilized under Uther’s command. The remaining clerics either migrated to protect the civilians and set up field hospitals.

On the ground the Resistance of Manny divided the city into sections. Hirzon and Wilhelm had been quick to organize the mortals, as per their contract with the dragons, and now mobilized their forces and the people of the city to protect it. Attacks like these were either bombing runs or, especially recently, assaults. In the case of the latter, as now, Wilhelm took strategic command from the air. As a master of the air he was in as much danger as Uther. Hirzon, St. Amoss, Mother Lomasi, Father Arroway, Perilune Claire, and Sister Elone each led the defense of a section of the city, each contigent designed to fight off whatever Ur-Lord Sid summoned down, while Brother Thom was given defense of HQ. Team RYSN took a section neabry HQ and prepared for the creatures.

Ur-Lord Sid began his assault with a large number of Lifael and Warless to wreak havoc on the town, but the people were prepared. One does not attack the town over and over without the inhabitants learning to prepare additional fire and energy protection. The first wave was over in less than a minute and the defenders had hardly worked up a sweat, but then explosions lit the sky. All across the city the defenders stopped and watched as fireballs and lightning bolts flew at the dragons around Sid, driving them back and killing a few. The people watched in shock as the smoke cleared to reveal two new figures in the sky: an elf in robes with a grand staff, arcane energies swirling about him, and a woman in the vestments of a druid with bands of light about her wrists and holding a golden orb.

Together the two mages cast a powerful summoning spell, bringing forth meteors from the heavens upon the city. Where the fell opened portals to the Abyss and demons began to poor forth. But they were only the guards. From where the meteors had fallen rose a new foe. Armored humanoids wielding large weapons, all made of a black metal. Zorite steel. Take cold iron to it’s extreme and you obtain a substance that is anathema to magic. Somehow these creatures were animated by magic to the point of life, and yet were untouchable by all but the most powerful of spellcasters. The people and dragons of Jik’ton were not prepared. Many of the kin fled to the temples and many of the mortal spellcasters were struck down. Across the city the dragons fought defensively pulling back into the temples of Shiarn and Savannah as the armored creatures advanced. And then, as they drew closer to the temple of Sara and refuge of the citizens, one was struck from behind. It screamed in pain and imploded in a burst of dispel. Behind it was a bard and a thief from a nearby tavern. Together they outwitted the constructs, so that when Hirzon’s party arrived the battle was over and the bard was humming a merry little tune. Before Hirzon could ask, the gnome hopped to his feet and said, “Hail Manny, full of Smash.”

Team RYSN also faced one of these creatures, which the dragons later named Wolfrau (meaning unmelting, in reference to wolfram, a metal which cannot be melted by any fire of mortal or dragon). Their encounter was not that much different from the rest of the city as the demons they faced nearly incapacitated Rom. He narrowly avoided being encased in their webbing—there is no escaping the web of a Bebilith—was crushed and had his shield removed, though his armor survived. The single Wofrau they encountered was quickly dispatched by Niachi and Titus, just as the mysterious thief had done so earlier. Knowing the weakness of the Wolfrau, Team RYSN began to co-ordinate with Hirzon and Wilhelm, who quickly re-organized the defenders to make better use of their rogues and duelists. As the battle appeared to wind down, an amethyst dragon approached Team RYSN.

She named herself Mylanth and though young, had been chosen by Uther to bring a message to Team RYSN. The two people who had appeared in the sky were Ur-Lord Severus and Valorie, who now wielded the Orb of Brass Dragonkind. This item was an artifact of the greatest power: giving her the abilities of an ancient brass dragon doomed to eternal imprisonment within the orb. But it also gave her the unholy ability to dominate any brass dragon who approached. Such an Orb exists for each variety of dragon, though most are controlled and protected by the dragons, themselves. The Resistance had known for some time that the Brass Orb was missing, along with certain others. Because the dragons dared not use the orbs for themselves, Uther could not have seen Valorie’s possession of this one and didn’t know if Severus or Sid possessed any others. Thus he split his forces. Any dragons or kin that could be spared in the fight against Sid were sent back to protect the council and the vaults of the remaining Orbs. But all other dragons or kin who could still fight were being kept to hold off Sid. That left none for Valorie, who had taken up hold of a hill outside Jik’ton and was assaulting the city from the rear.

He commanded Team RYSN to dispatch Valorie. He had no other forces to spare and he could not risk her or Severus holding another of the Orbs. Already Mylanth reported that Valorie had captured a young adult brass dragon named Jura and one enslaved dragon was too many. Wilhelm and Hirzon agreed with Uther’s plan, especially since they were bound by contract, and so Team RYSN went out to face their old friend. Their objectives:

Retake the Orb

Rescue Jura, if possible. Kill her if not.

Rescue Valorie if possible, and kill her if not.

The battle began with the now corrupted Valorie taunting them. She came with a slave of a dragon and three Wolfrau, but no companion. Instead twisted growths had burst forth from her body, her skin was twisted and gnarled into the hardest of bark, and her eyes were nothing more than pools of white noise. Titus could tell that she had prepared herself with plenty of abjurations to protect her. Jura opened with her breath weapon of sleeping, which failed on all but Sara’phiem. Valorie placed a large cloud of acid fog on the field to prevent any paladins from reckless charging and let Jura run interference on the werewolf while she dealt with the rogues. Titus was trapped in the fog and Niachi, though he narrowly avoided her disintegrate, was put to sleep by her awesome breath weapon, granted by the Orb she carried. Niachi’s sword refused to let it end like this and woke the cat with a great bolt of lightning. He and Titus closed in, but were once again stopped, this time by a field of black tentacles.

Despite her advantages and her plans for each of the party, they slowly overcame her obstacles. Rom beat down Jura to an inch of her life. She tried to break free of her dominate, but was unable and continued to attack. In his bloodlust, Rom killed her, not realizing she was only a pawn. Immediately divine lightning struck down some of his power, including his ability to shift form, but this only served to motivate him to finish the battle that much quicker. He blasted the Wolfrau away with a prismatic spray, and nearly caught Valorie in the blast. She resisted and attempted to retreat into the fog, but Raniy, after waking Sara’phiem, dispelled the fog. This allowed Titus and Rom to flank her. The ninja poisoned her and Rom knocked the Orb from her hand, taking it for his own. Raniy swooped in from the side to cast harm upon the former druid, but she found the last bit of strength in her to resist, and lunged for the Orb. She nearly grabbed it, but Titus’ poison and the toll of the battle had made her too weak and she fell to the ground as they knocked her unconscious.

With the defeat of their former ally, the party watched as Uther, Wilhelm, St. Amoss, and Hirzon routed Ur-Lord Sid from the sky. He escaped, of course, and in the aftermath it seemed Severus had as well, or at least no one had seen him since his initial arrival. Security was high for the rest of the night, but the battle was definitively won.

Back at Resistance HQ, Valorie now rests imprisoned in an anti-magic cell and warded with carinite. Twilight, Hirzon, and the clerics now ponder what to do with her and whether or not her soul can be saved…